


Luminous Beings and Crude Matter

by PaintedElectric



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Battle of Endor, Blood and Gore, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Explicit Language, Fear, Force Choking (Star Wars), Force Lightning, Force Sensitivity, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Imperial Officers (Star Wars), Lightsaber Battles, Loss, Manipulation, Motti survived, POV Multiple, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Battle of Endor, Sacrifice, Self-Sacrifice, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:01:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 78,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23473636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaintedElectric/pseuds/PaintedElectric
Summary: When their masters dispose so easily of them for no greater cause than irrelevancy, it is a hard thing indeed to turn a blind eye.  For too long have they watched their comrades fall victim to the Sith's wrath, needlessly disposed of as if they were nothing.  Too long have they blindly served an Empire that cares so little for them.  Too long have they waited for their turn to feel the crushing power of the Force around their throats.  It is time to alter their course, even if that path ends at the hands of the Sith.
Relationships: Conan Antonio Motti & Firmus Piett, Tiaan Jerjerrod & Conan Antonio Motti, Tiaan Jerjerrod & Firmus Piett
Comments: 13
Kudos: 35





	1. A Limitless Shadow

**Author's Note:**

> In case you can't tell, I hate writing summaries and figuring out titles, the latter of which might be a WIP.
> 
> As a fan of the Original Trilogy and of these three Imperials, I've wanted to write a FF for a long time but have held off because of my crippling anxiety to do a disservice to their characters and any fellow fans who might be reading. I did my best with all the Star Wars-exclusive terms and tried to make the story at least more plausible than the Sequel Trilogy. (Sequel loyalists can mail their hate to P.O Box Bite Me :) ) Please be kind.
> 
> Also, try as I might, I still make many mistakes with posting/tags because I don't post nearly as often enough to know what I'm doing half the time. If there's any tags I missed that you think should be included, let me know and I'll gladly add them.
> 
> I'm also using the quarantine as an opportunity to write more even though I have a GOT piece in the works that I'm suffering a major writer's block on. In the meantime, Star Wars and a respectful moment of silence to Richard LeParmentier for portraying the first man in history to suffer the Force choke and putting such dedication into it, without whom this story would not be possible. May the Force be with you, Richard.

**COMMANDER JERJERROD**

Serving under a Sith lord left little room for certainty on most occasions but an absolute certainty was that he never wanted to suffer Lord Vader’s wrath. He had heard it told through fast-spreading rumor that it was an unpleasant experience, but he heard otherwise from the one man who had endured it firsthand and lived. That man quashed those rumors and confided in him that it was a scarring, shattering thing to endure, something that lingered in his nightmares. The sensation of a powerful, invisible hand closing around one’s throat and squeezing slowly, relentlessly. The feeling of one’s jugular about to burst as blood and oxygen both stopped flowing to the brain, as feeling below the neck ceased to exist, as a shadow descended on one’s sight…

As overseer and chief architect of the construction of the second Death Star, Commander Tiaan Jerjerrod did not have the misfortune to be aboard the first one when the Rebels infiltrated its defenses and brought about its destruction. There were a handful of survivors from that first disaster: Lord Vader himself and a small collection of men who had fled at the first sight of the rebel fighters, one of them being Admiral Conan Motti. Lord Vader was none too pleased about the man’s survival when Grand Moff Tarkin was one of the millions of casualties, but as the survivors stumbled, somewhat defeated back to the nearest Imperial Fleet gathering, Jerjerrod was present when Admiral Motti’s shuttle arrived on the _Surveyor,_ the so-named Star Destroyer Jerjerrod happened to be upon to report the second Death Star’s progress.

Admiral Motti made his own report on how the rebel forces had taken down the most powerful battle station in the universe and how the plans for the second Death Star would need to be altered to ensure that no fighter pilots could set off the main reactor this time. It was a simple enough command to give, but nearly impossible to carry out without completely changing their building strategy, something Jerjerrod was quick to point out to the admiral.

After much squabbling over which alterations to put into place and which to forgo, it was decided that Jerjerrod would enlist an additional three hundred men to help with the modifications to the exhaust ports in which each one was fitted with a heavy armored disc. Orders directly from Emperor Palpatine placed Lord Vader in charge of the entire Imperial Fleet. The Sith lord then grounded Admiral Motti to be an attendant of sorts to Jerjerrod aboard the Death Star, assisting in whatever was required of him. To keep his rank and status as well as his life, Motti accepted his new role, though Jerjerrod could see quite plainly that the admiral bristled with the injustice of being demoted, if only in Vader’s eyes.

Jerjerrod had respect for the man where others didn’t because of Motti’s ambition, his conviction, and his ruthlessness, but something had humbled him since their last meeting, making Motti almost entirely a new man in the multitude of changes he had undergone, but rendering him the same as ever to those who could not collectively note the changes. When first he arrived after the destruction of the Death Star, he wore his collar higher, his eyes were bloodshot, and he spoke with a rasp as he recounted the sight of his pride and glory exploding outwardly in a fiery ring of debris. Afterward and in the days and months following, his determination and confidence were no longer always present, replaced instead by a faraway look, one of survivor’s guilt. His voice on the council was still held in high regard as it had been before, but there was an absence of full mental presence during these periods.

Motti’s resolve to crush the rebellion seemed as fiery as ever in his relentless suggestions of places where the rebels might have relocated and several of these suggestions proved to be fruitful in locating reconnaissance teams. But when the few Joint Chiefs able to attend these meetings left the council chamber, Jerjerrod saw Motti’s posture drop, saw his sneer wither away. He looked to be a man aged, and not in the way of experience.

The admiral was a few years Jerjerrod’s junior and they had not graduated into the same class of Imperial Academy alumni, but they had met and bonded during their academic careers along with a handful of others who had both risen in rank and fallen in battle: General Maximillain Veers, Captain Lorth Needa, Admiral Firmus Piett. As the eldest, General Veers had ascended the Imperial ladder of achievement much quicker, and was the first to die as a battlefield commander on the sixth planet of the Hoth system nearly three years following the rebels’ victory over the Death Star. His remains were never recovered, as his AT-AT walker had exploded on impact when a rebel snowspeeder crashed into the cockpit. Most recently, Captain Needa was an unlucky victim of Lord Vader’s displeasure when the former failed to capture a rebel ship with valuable and noteworthy passengers aboard it. He was stricken of his titles and given a dishonorable space funeral for his failure, as Admiral Piett later told Jerjerrod over hologram message.

And now, how many of them remained, spread thinly across the various ships scouring the galaxy for the rebels? Jerjerrod and Motti remained on the Death Star, Needa was a corpse breaking apart into space particles, and Admiral Piett was preparing for his most important and dangerous role to date aboard the _Executor,_ the flag ship defense in case of a rebel attack upon the new Death Star as it hovered aboard the Endor moon. Piett had been promoted to Fleet Admiral for the occasion, something he had confided in both Jerjerrod and Admiral Motti that he was positively terrified of. A promotion most often meant nowadays that the predecessor had been murdered by the Sith Lord, putting the successor in the direct line of fire to take the fault of any mishap or inconvenience.

Admiral Piett had also been present when his superior had sampled Lord Vader’s penchant for strangling officials that brought him even the slightest amount of annoyance. In Piett’s case, it had been Admiral Kendal Ozzel who had been throttled directly beside him and Piett had told Jerjerrod of the horrible gasping sounds as Ozzel’s speech was cut off mid-sentence by the power of the Force closing around his throat. Piett had told Jerjerrod that directly following Ozzel’s murder, the former had had to endure the rest of his shift in sweat-soaked clothing and that immediately following the end of his shift, he returned to his quarters and peeled his uniform off, putting it three times through the rinse cycle on their automated cleaning and pressing machine before he was satisfied that both the stains and stench had come out.

That discussion had been shortly before Needa’s execution when last the Joint Chiefs had convened upon the Death Star. Since then, interactions with Admiral Piett were related strictly to monitored hologram reports. Meanwhile, Motti was made to give his own reports to Lord Vader on the Death Star’s progress, a task given to him by the Emperor shortly after Motti had had a private discussion with Jerjerrod about his reluctance to occupy the same breathing space as the Sith. Perhaps, contrary to what Jerjerrod believed, the Emperor and Lord Vader were aware of all thoughts and actions made by their officers, even if they were not even remotely near one another. Or maybe His Excellency held Motti responsible for the deaths of all those officers who were not so lucky to escape the first Death Star, held accountable as being a coward, though it was now several years past that incident and if the Emperor wished to punish Motti, he surely would have done it by now. 

Such reassurances were wasted on Motti, however. It was not but a few days following the news of Captain Needa’s death that Motti had come to Jerjerrod’s officer suite after hours in a state of disarray looking as if a ghost was hard on his heels. Jerjerrod had been in the process of removing his own uniform; his pants were coming untucked from within his boots and his undershirt poked out from his tunic. His sensory unit alerted him to the presence of someone waiting without, and he had opened his door to find Motti leaning against the doorframe, winded as if he had run the circumference of the Death Star three times over. His nightshirt was soaked through in perspiration, his hair plastered to his forehead with more of it. His pants had a stain that smelled as if it might be bile. 

Stunned into silence, Jerjerrod had let Motti into his quarters, steered the man into a chair, and pressed a tin cup of water on him, but Motti’s hands had shaken so terribly that he had been unable to hold the cup steady.

Knowing that the man would not come forward about his troubles if prompted, Jerjerrod sat down opposite him on the edge of his bunk and waited quietly for his friend to speak first. Jerjerrod tried his best to keep his eyes on the now half-empty cup in Motti’s hands instead of the man’s pallid face which was slick with a sheen of cold sweat. Now without standing to attention in uniform, Jerjerrod could see that Motti had lost considerable weight in the past few years and that he must have been wearing padding to keep his clothing looking presentable or better yet, to hide his wasted form from their master. He had deep-set, dark circles under his eyes that must have been concealed with powder by day. The skin around his wrists looked stretched and yellow.

Several times he had tried to raise the cup to his lips but only managed to slosh more water down the front of his nightshirt. It was so unsettling to see this man known for his prowess and poise suddenly look so beaten and frightened. His somewhat arrogant attitude was replaced by that of a man who might break if words uttered aloud were above a whisper. And so Jerjerrod had taken great care to be as gentle as possible as he extended his own hands to rest upon Motti’s and hold them still until the shaking subsided. At first, Motti flinched, though Jerjerrod did not accredit that to whatever ailed him; Imperial officers were simply not used to physical touch in such a strict environment.

Motti did not make eye contact with him, allowing his eyes to settle instead upon Jerjerrod’s hands, but the way he regarded those hands was with trepidation as if he feared Jerjerrod might suddenly lash out at him.

“If you thought I would harm you, you wouldn’t have come,” Jerjerrod assured him.

“Do you suppose…do you suppose he can hear us?” asked Motti.

With only one person to whom Motti could be referring, it was no small wonder what had driven him from his bed this night.

“No, I don’t believe so. I don’t believe his powers work in that fashion. He can sense a presence, but not eavesdrop on that presence unless that individual allows him to communicate through the mind and even then, I believe it only works between those who share his powers. That is to say, Sith and Jedi. But why would that matter, unless you’ve come to admit your defection to the Rebel Alliance, in which case I’m afraid I shall have to turn you in.”

Though it was not a moment for brevity, Motti alone was the officer whom Jerjerrod would dare to jest with. Imperial officials, officers, and soldiers were not known for their sense of humor, for it was a trait stamped out of them to maintain unwavering seriousness at all times but given that Motti’s personality had always lent room for some form of enthusiasm, he would appreciate Jerjerrod’s attempts to make light of the situation.

“Has he said something to you recently?” Jerjerrod prompted when Motti said nothing.

“Besides our interactions when I make my reports, no. Not since the Joint Chiefs convened under Grand Moff Tarkin for our last briefing.”

“But he’s the reason you’re here now.”

“Firmus told you what happened to Lorth,” bypassed Motti in hardly more than a whisper.

Moments after the tragedy, the news of Captain Needa’s death had been a new, if forbidden subject of discussion aboard the Death Star. Jerjerrod had not yet had a moment to grieve for his friend now that a handful of days had passed, but Piett had been the one to communicate the news personally to Jerjerrod and Motti had been informed later that evening. He was now asking for Jerjerrod’s opinion as well as his grief.

“Yes, Firmus told me. He said it was relatively quick, meant to be delivered swiftly without drawn-out consequences.”

“As if that justifies it,” said Motti coldly.

“He did not suffer, I am told,” said Jerjerrod, though he agreed with Motti that that did not make the fact sting any less. “Unlike Admiral Ozzel—“

“Unlike me,” said Motti and now with a catch in his tone, a rasp reminiscent of the awful garbled sound to come from his throat when his shuttle met with the fleet after the first Death Star’s destruction. When Motti had stumbled off of his escape pod bringing news of the colossal blow delivered to the Imperial Fleet, Jerjerrod had been there personally to see his friend struggle to speak, and not just from shock.

At the time, Jerjerrod had wondered how Motti’s voice had been damaged, why his bloodshot eyes were concentrated in fear as the admiral asked if Lord Vader had also survived the attack. Jerjerrod remembered how Motti had seemed to wilt when informed that the Sith had indeed survived and was making his way to them now to hear of Motti’s report. It seemed an insignificant thing, but Jerjerrod recalled how Motti had run his hand compulsively over his neck during the entire interrogation in the same fashion as he was doing now.

“Unlike me,” he had said.

The weight of those words fell heavily on Jerjerrod as he watched Motti, this man who had once been a wide-eyed, eager, dedicated boy, hang his head as if afraid of Jerjerrod’s judgment. He reached up to his high collar, something Jerjerrod had not noticed as being odd until now—for a nightshirt, at least. Motti rolled it down on all sides and Jerjerrod felt as if he had received a dull-charged hit to the gut from a malfunctioning blaster.

Horrible, dark, bruised-looking marks lined Motti’s neck in the shape of several fingers and a thumb. They were not bruises, but scars, scars from an otherworldly injury that would not fade with time. This was what had befallen Admiral Ozzel and Captain Needa, this strangulation at the hands of an invisible force. Lord Vader had exercised his power by demonstrating how very capable he was of killing a man without ever touching him and somehow, miraculously, Motti had survived.

“What did you do to upset him?” asked Jerjerrod in fixated horror.

“I spoke out of turn,” said Motti bitterly. “Or so he seemed to feel. He was willing to murder me for such a trivial thing and no one spoke on my behalf. No one confronted him except Governor Tarkin, and only then because it was inconvenient for the Moff to have to report my death to the Emperor. They all were going to let me die for making a verbal challenge and he was going to kill me just to make an example of me.”

This was where the blind cockiness of being an elite member of the Imperial Army had finally caught up with Motti. His ambitious traits were warned against by his friends in the academy and yet, that same ambition had helped him secure his position, and so he felt indestructible. He had challenged the Sith lord without knowing the power that resonated within Lord Vader and had made the most costly mistake of his life. Jerjerrod imagined the occupants of the council room sitting in stunned silence as Lord Vader descended upon Motti and how Motti had realized his error too late to slip in an apology. The other Joint Chiefs would have watched Motti grapple at his throat, heels hammering on the floor as he made a nonverbal plea to anyone who would come to his aid—and finding that no one cared. Some would say he deserved it, if he died and others would claim that if they protested, Lord Vader would turn his powers upon them in due course.

“I didn’t,” said Motti, finally lifting his gaze to match Jerjerrod’s in anticipation of his next question. “I didn’t try to apologize or beg, I had a strict resolve to die without begging, but I was still furious that they would let him do that to me as if I was so easily replaced, as if I was nothing. For as long as I’ve served the Empire, I’ve never been _nothing_!”

The stark declaration caused Jerjerrod to jump just slightly, for he had not expected such an outburst from a man who seemed to be trying to speak as quietly as possible. With the eruption, however, came a fire behind Motti’s eyes of the hatred for unfairness.

“I was the youngest Chief of the Imperial Navy ever elected. The Emperor himself considered me for the position of Grand Moff before Tarkin swiped the role from under me. If not for him, I would have been the most senior officer in that council room and the great Sith lord would not have tried to crush my windpipe then. He would have respected me and my position as he respected Tarkin but because I was only second-in-command, I was expendable.”

Most would say this was Admiral Motti in true form, whinging about his superiority and wistfully seeking something grander, but Jerjerrod knew better. It was not status that Motti desired, but respect. It was something not given to him by his father or his elder brother, something he had yearned for since his early days at the academy, something he earned for himself amongst his friends by proving his cunning and adaptability. But as a disgraced survivor of his greatest failure, he had even less of that respect now than he did when Lord Vader was simultaneously berating and killing him.

“After everything I have done for the Empire and the Imperial Army, after the years of service and dedication, after the life they forced on me, they all were willing to let him kill me. Our lives are so meaningless to the Empire that a Joint Chief officer is disposable in favor of avoiding a Sith lord’s anger.”

Choosing his words carefully so as to not seem as if he was siding with the council’s viewpoint over Motti’s, Jerjerrod posed, “You must consider how you would have acted if the situation had been reversed and you had watched some other poor soul be placed at the mercy of the Force. Even if you believed you could say something of reputable defense, don’t you think that he more than likely would have turned his anger on you for interfering?”

“I’ve considered that and I think that the camaraderie instilled in us at the academy was leeched out of every man who wears a badge with more than three bars. I think that the lessons drilled into us about how unification for the sake of the Empire is our greatest strength is an even greater pile of bantha shit.”

Swearing was strictly forbidden to maintain professionalism, but Jerjerrod was not unused to Motti speaking foul language. He was renowned for it at the academy and after the first time he had been caught and punished for it, he was careful as to when he resorted to it. A clever man, he knew how to not be caught in the act. But it would not do to have such a high ranking officer be heard speaking ill of the Empire which they served (though privately, Jerjerrod believed that it was a far greater crime for their master to kill a man out of boredom than to swear).

“How many of those cowards united to come to my aid?” Motti continued, rubbing at his neck as he so often did nowadays. “None. Their own precious skin was of greater importance to them than confronting him. It didn’t matter that he had no cause to do such a thing; it only mattered that they not get involved. How many stood by when he did the same to Lorth? How many watched it happen and did nothing?” Then, as if struck by something comical, Motti added with a disturbing amount of cruel pleasure, “And how many of them are still alive now?”

Jerjerrod refrained from pointing out that all of those men had not abandoned ship at the first sign of trouble as Motti had.

Continuing on, Motti brought their friend aboard the nearest Star Destroyer into question. “Firmus himself was a witness to Admiral Ozzel’s murder, a bystander—“

“That is an unfair observation,” Jerjerrod defended. “As a captain listening to his superior converse with Lord Vader, he had no authority to speak unless spoken to, and he would have been dealt with just the same if he had tried and we would have sent three letters of condolences to their home planets these past weeks instead of two.”

“He might have been able to say something and not been punished for it,” insisted Motti stubbornly. “The lower ranks are a part of the masses, not of any importance to a Sith lord.”

“Lord Vader didn’t seem to think so insignificantly of Captain Needa.”

“He failed in performing his duty, the one task assigned to him. He was unfit for his command,” said Motti in the careless disregard for an official’s death that all of them attempted to maintain but very few of them succeeded in doing. Motti, however, was an expert in appearing disinterested with such trivial things as death—at least, when under inquiry. Here, in the privacy of Jerjerrod’s quarter, he let his composure slip just enough to reassure Jerjerrod that he did harvest remorse for their fallen companion.

“He was unfortunate to be in a position of command,” Jerjerrod corrected.

“He failed,” Motti persisted. “Admiral Ozzel failed. I was only having a civil conversation during a routine briefing. I made no such error on the eve of battle or during a high-speed pursuit. Others have made grander mistakes than directly addressing a Sith lord with no repercussions but if a decorated man speaks out on behalf of the masses, he’s crucified for it.”

“But you weren’t speaking for the masses. You spoke out of turn—“

Motti’s bared teeth flashed in unfond recollection. “As I am well aware, Commander.”

Jerjerrod would never say this aloud, but perhaps Motti’s misfortune to cross the Sith was a form of pre-justice for what was to come, for Motti’s part in the massacre of an entire planet. If there was such a thing as fate, it might have cursed Motti to raise his voice to the Sith as an ever-present reminder of how he had erred in sealing the doom of all those who lived on Alderaan.

By that same token, there was not much room to lay the blame on Motti and others for carrying out the command the Grand Moff had given when Jerjerrod had made that command possible to execute by conceiving the plans for the construction of the Death Star. The station had been his and Motti’s idea, but Jerjerrod’s creation. He had drawn up the blueprints and presented them. He had made assembly of the world-destroying station possible. In that manner, he also was responsible for those billions of deaths, if not more so than Motti, and so where was Jerjerrod’s comeuppance?

He felt Motti’s scrutinizing stare on him, and so his conflicting morality was put on hold to address an unasked question.

“You were wondering if I would have spoken out on your behalf, if I had been there,” guessed Jerjerrod, though he could almost hear the question in Motti’s head with Motti’s own voice. It was not so much an educated guess on Jerjerrod’s behalf as an insight prompted by an unexplainable sense of perceptibility.

That wide-eyed innocence of the boy Jerjerrod had met and known at the academy was present again as Motti considered him, waiting and hoping for an answer that would give him peace of mind. Even though the situation was likely to never repeat itself and would do him no good now that the damage had been done, it meant a great deal to Conan Motti to know that someone would have stopped Lord Vader from strangling him or at least tried to stop the Sith lord. It mattered deeply to Motti that a friend would have defied the face of the Empire to come to his aid.

“As your friend, I would like to say that I would have intervened despite us both knowing that he would have done away with me for inconveniencing him. But I cannot say what I would have done because my hand has never been forced in such a manner. I fear him, as you do—“

“I don’t fear him,” said Motti indignantly and now with a tone of disappointment that Jerjerrod did not have a straightforward answer for him. “I don’t regret verbally sparring with him, either, and I won’t concede the argument that took place. He was still wrong; it wasn’t the Force that led to the Death Star’s destruction, but luck favoring the rebels. I know I was right and he knew it as well, so instead of admitting to it, he decided he would win the dispute by incapacitating his opponent, which makes him an even greater coward than the fools who watched.”

“After he gave you marks to last a lifetime, you have no fear of him?” asked Jerjerrod doubtfully.

“I didn’t then and I don’t now,” said Motti, and it sounded more like a warning than an announcement he believed in.

With a glance up and down his friend’s disheveled form, Jerjerrod tried to keep the look of condescending disbelief off of his face. “This discussion held in confidence in the early hours of the morning leads me to believe otherwise.”

“Believe what you want, but I don’t fear that man or the man he serves,” Motti insisted.

“No one would call you craven if you did. The rest of us fear him, and we haven’t yet been subjected to his powers. It makes you no less of a man to fear him and it doesn’t make the rest of us fools.”

“He’s only a man. A gifted man, but a man still. It’s not his mask or his voice that have plagued my nightmares for so long,” and with this admittance, there came shame like a child under the scolding and critical eye of his father. “I feel it every time I close my eyes. I feel this powerful, invisible hand blocking off the air from my lungs. A sudden intake of breath and then not being able to breathe at all. The hand doesn’t close around my throat gradually, but all at once and it only squeezes tighter the more I struggle. I can’t see and I taste blood at the back of my throat. And there’s silence from everything except my own gagging. I don’t hear him breathing or the dull hum of the ship, just my own naked spluttering. But he doesn’t stop. I’m trapped right there on the verge of dying until I can find it in myself to wake up, but sometimes that’s hours later. And when I do wake up, it’s as if I never slept. I’m exhausted, I’ve been exhausted for months and I can’t stand it any longer.”

Even as he said it, Motti pulled at the sagging skin on his face in turmoil. Such aged skin on a man barely past his third decade. Motti had not boasted his achievements; he was the youngest man ever to be promoted to Chief of the Imperial Navy because he had the wit and the aspiration to be one. But no one would have guessed that this man with his mousy brown hair now graying and stress lines on his face was as young as his identification card claimed. It was nothing short of painful for Jerjerrod to see the younger man now look older than him, or at least of an age with him.

“I’m so…tired…” said Motti, eyes closed as if in prayer.

He would never ask. Motti was too proud a man to ask anyone, any man for help, evident in how he allowed himself to nearly be killed rather than ask one of his fellow officers to come to his aid. But his implication was enough for Jerjerrod to know what his friend wanted.

“As a long-term solution, I would suggest turning on your comlink and hologram projector to connect specifically to my quarters at night and if I can see and hear you in distress, I can waken you. For tonight, I would advise you to sleep here.”

“That I will not be doing—“

Motti began to rise, but Jerjerrod stood up and blocked Motti’s knees in with his chair, forcing him to remain sitting. “You come knocking on my door at this hour sweating and on the verge of fainting, vomiting, or both, tell me this horror story of your nightmares and complain about what a great injustice you have been served, and expect me to let you walk back to your quarters in this condition? I would not only be an abysmal friend, but a sorry excuse for a commander if I allowed one of my men to do something that could potentially lead to more harm, either to himself or others. Your shift begins in five hours and I will wake you in four and a half.”

As if it pained him to accept the offer, as if it pained him to speak, Motti wrapped his mouth around the name, “Tiaan—“

Only in the strictest confidence did they address one another as such, for the days of amicable banter and playfulness were long gone and calling another officer by first name was a sign of disrespect as well as a punishable offense. But they had been friends first and that was a form of loyalty the Empire could not extinguish.

“At ease, Admiral.”

Jerjerrod pushed his armchair against the door and reclaimed his seat once more, pulling up a series of charts on a projector in front of him to study rebel movement so as to put Motti at ease. He completely ignored his friend who was still hunched at the edge of the bed at a loss as to how he should act when told to take his rest. For a time, he sat with his hands folded, thumbs moving distractedly over each other but as Jerjerrod grew increasingly immersed in his work, he sensed rather than saw Motti turn onto his side with his knees to his chest and one hand on his throat.

When Jerjerrod looked up for the briefest moment to take in the time, he saw that Motti had one arm tucked around his stomach and the other twitching at his neck as his eyebrows knit together and a faint garbled sound came from his throat. Placing his work aside, Jerjerrod rose, went to his bedside, and with one hand protecting his face from a potential unconscious attack, he used the other to shake Motti by the arm.

Motti came awake with hooded eyes, regarded Jerjerrod over him, touched a finger to his throat, and then his eyes closed once again. Jerjerrod waited until he was certain that Motti had fallen back into a deep sleep before he left him be. For the rest of the night, Motti did not stir, but nor did he uncurl from the vulnerable position he had somehow found comfort in.

The nearby planet’s sun was rising when Jerjerrod once again shook Motti, this time to permanently rouse him and Motti wakened with no words and a guilt-ridden gaze as he collected himself and let himself out into the corridor.

That was the last they had spoken of Motti’s fear of the Force and unadmitted fear of Vader. On duty, Motti made no sign that he was a broken man inside. He stood tall and defiant when addressing Lord Vader and delivered orders as sharply and authoritatively as ever. He silenced the grumblings about him from subordinates by assigning them to scrap detail, earning him a new reputation as the man who was out for vengeance in pursuit of his resumed goal of becoming Grand Moff. Unpopular among his equals, revered with slight animosity from his inferiors, he upheld the façade of a man in complete control of his life.

And the only reason he managed to keep up the ruse was thanks to Jerjerrod raiding the medical bay for a synthetic form of help just after the lights out order for all off-duty personnel. Medication was restricted and rationed, given the number of men aboard the Death Star, and a prescription could not be filled unless approved by the chief medical warden. All medication was kept under tight surveillance, but Jerjerrod managed to scavenge some by deactivating the on-duty meddroid long enough to retrieve a healthy dosage. He replaced what he had taken with a similar-looking container, reactivated the meddroid, and made his way to Motti’s quarters which were on the same level as his, but nearly a half mile’s walk from his door.

A single knock and the sensor above him alerted Motti within to his presence. Motti allowed him in at attention despite being halfway into his night attire.

“Commander,” he greeted. “Am I needed on the bridge?”

Jerjerrod gave him no reply, knowing that Motti would not appreciate breaching the forbidden subject again. Instead, he set the stolen cylinder down on Motti’s bedside table. Confused, Motti read the clear label that said: “Antistress capsule. Count: 90. 200 mg.”

Realizing the value of the gift as well as the risk Jerjerrod had taken to obtain it for him, Motti’s tried to thank him, but his gratitude was never given nor received, as Jerjerrod silenced him with a shake of his head.

“Report at oh-seven hundred for preparation of personal inspection by Lord Vader, Admiral.”

“Yes, sir.”

Those priceless pills were what gave Motti the strength to face Lord Vader the following day as well as many days after. Inspections became regular to ensure that construction was on schedule and despite his claims to not be phased by the Sith, Motti would not have been able to so flawlessly make his reports or stand in Vader’s holographic presence if not for the capsules.

And now, many months later as the Death Star orbited the forest moon of Endor, Jerjerrod had to wonder if perhaps his judgment had been compromised, if all he had done was not for the greater good but for one man’s peace of mind. 

The simultaneous circumstances of Needa’s murder and Motti’s breakdown saw the last of Jerjerrod’s professional restraint and all that happened after was a direct result of Tiaan Jerjerrod being unable to withstand the sight or sound of another man dying because of a Sith lord’s predilection for cruel punishment.


	2. Mind Games

**ADMIRAL MOTTI**

He reread the message on his officer report panel, then reread it again.

A gathering of the Joint Chiefs at the behest of Lord Vader in which his, Motti’s, presence was required.

Today might just be the day that he shot out his officer’s quarters window and let himself be sucked out into the unforgiving vacuum of space. The ulterior option was far less favorable.

With the help of the capsules Commander Jerjerrod had smuggled to him, he had been able to make report after report to Lord Vader over hologram without so much as a difficult swallow. The few in-person interactions Motti had had with the Sith were always accompanied by Jerjerrod or another officer and any blame in construction delays that might be present to assign was always shifted away from Motti. His confidence had grown as he found that he was able to look straight into those bug-eyed black disks and not have a flutter of fear.

He was not stupid enough to believe that it was his own willpower that fueled his newfound self-reliance, but the high given to him by his capsules. Still, they were necessary for him to continue presenting himself as the same man who had so proudly strutted about the halls of the first Death Star.

And they might not be enough to see him through a meeting where the new Joint Chiefs convened to trade useless banter over whatever the rebels might be doing at this very moment. It was to be the same type of situation as the one where he had realized just how powerful of an opponent Vader was and how much he hated the mystical entity that gave the Sith power. He had seen the council chamber aboard this new Death Star and it was built with the same design, the same circular table and nine chairs, the same space around the table for a lone figure to prowl. Even the subject of discussion was to be the same.

It was a recreation of the worst moments in Motti’s life and he had less than nine hours to prepare for it. Bypassing the wild notion that this was a ruse from Vader to unhinge him (he was not nearly that important to waste such valuable time and effort on and besides, Vader was not that petty), Motti suspected that this might instead be a test of Vader’s to see if any of his Joint Chiefs needed replacing. Save for Motti and Admiral Tagge, all of the original members had died aboard the first Death Star (though Tagge met his end soon thereafter), and so Motti did not know all of these new councilmen by face, even if he knew them by name. Their few gatherings had not yet been scheduled during a time when all were present and so most of them were still strangers to Motti.

He was the only veteran heading into this and most likely, the only one terrified by the prospect.

Exceptionally glad that the officers across the hall and on either side of him could not hear him swear in frustration, he whiled away one hour by pacing the length of his quarters and then trying and failing to stomach his untouched dinner. Try as he might, he could not rid himself of the sounds of a powerful _thrum_ closing in on him and his own panicked cut-off breathing. It had been some time since he had so vividly remembered these things and in unison had a negative reaction to them. His stress was too potent for a mere one capsule dosage to contain.

Loosening a hollowed out section of his cot that he had designed to hide his capsule container in the instance that someone unauthorized came poking about in his room, he decided that it would not be amiss for him to take his dosage earlier than normal to prepare him for the morning. In any case, he had a hope that it might soothe his nerves enough for him to at least sleep tonight.

It did not.

He spent an inordinate amount of time twisting about in his sheets, both too cold and too hot to keep them on or off. He tried sleeping in complete darkness with a blinder drawn over his window, tried sleeping with a light on, tried once again with the starlight to send him off, but to no avail. As a last resort, he took a small, withered box made of disposable material out of the same hollow he stored his capsules in and tapped out a grey object the length of his middle finger and about the same shape. 

Smoking of any kind was forbidden, but so were rationed drugs and Motti was far less concerned about being caught with banned substances than going into his upcoming meeting. He lit the end of the grey stick on his incinerator’s flames and then stood underneath the ventilator that would buffer out his smoke into the central air recycling system of the ship. Any foul odors were sucked up into the disposable air ducts and given new life after the toxins had been filtered out and so his dirty habit would go unnoticed when mixed in with all the other nasal offenses the station offered.

The lengths he had gone to bribe a known former smuggler trooper to get access to contraband would have been admirable if he had been in the smuggler trade, but he could only imagine what his commander would say if he saw Motti partaking in smoking as a way to calm himself.

The effects of his capsules began to set in and he was able to smoke through the grey stick and then toss it and all evidence into the incinerator with a deceiving sense of tranquility. That sense had worn off when another few hours passed and he was as alert as ever. He decided to ready himself an hour early so that he could enter the council room before anyone else and take the time to compile his emotions.

He took his cleaned and pressed uniform from his wardrobe and found that it was more ill fitting than the day before. Even by stuffing the necessary areas with padding as he had done for months to hide his malnourishment, he felt drowned in it. The powder he kept in his desk drawer had to be doubly applied to the skin under his eyes to conceal the bags and dark circles of stress and no sleep.

Even a shot of caffeine from his in-quarters bar was not enough to be of any assistance. He took a look at himself full-on in his mirror and the results did not please him. This wouldn’t do. Vader would see that he was under duress and the other Joint Chiefs would question him, ask if he was ill, for he certainly looked it.

He needed a quick fix and the container with his capsules looked so inviting…

Fifteen minutes later he had let himself into the deserted council chamber and sat down in his designated seat, second on the left from the center, directly across from what he knew would be Commander Jerjerrod’s seat. There was some comfort in that, at least.

Despite the earliness of the morning, he already felt himself beginning to sweat, though a chill remained with him that made him grateful for the padding he had placed inside his uniform. For some odd reason that had nothing to do with his exhaustion, his eyelids felt heavy…

In no time at all, he found himself being shaken awake by Commander Jerjerrod. Having not remembered drifting off, Motti sat up with a searing headache and an absence of a proper air supply.

“Has the briefing begun?” he asked groggily.

Jerjerrod scowled down at him. “No, and you’re lucky it hasn’t. Lord Vader would have you detained for what appears to be public drunkenness while on duty if he had arrived before I had. Wipe your nose.”

Running a hand across his nostrils, Motti found that it left a streak of blood.

“Oh…” he said in surprise.

Jerjerrod knelt beside his chair and slapped his face none too gently, pulling him in closer by his collar. “Have you been mistreating your medical privileges, Admiral?”

Motti bristled at being manhandled in such a way and played the fool, but there was little else that could explain why he had both passed out cold just before a council gathering and why his head throbbed, why both nostrils were trickling blood.

“How many did you take before coming in here?”

Motti kept his stubborn silence, but Jerjerrod shook him with a sense of urgency.

“How—many—Admiral?”

“More than the required dosage,” Motti admitted, knowing now that it was a mistake, knowing he had overdosed and was now in danger of more than just Vader.

Whipping off his glove, Jerjerrod put one hand on the back of Motti’s neck and with the other, forced two fingers up into Motti’s mouth, just below his uvula. Motti’s immediate instinct was to bite down on the intrusion but Jerjerrod secured his hold on Motti’s neck and threatened, “If you bite me, I’ll smash your skull into this table.” Retching at the foreign object in his mouth, Motti struggled, but kept his teeth well away from Jerjerrod’s fingers as they pressed down on the back of his tongue hard.

He had activated not only Motti’s gag reflex, but found a way to oust the medication. Motti had believed he so desperately needed that medication to confront Vader in the flesh once again in a meeting reminiscent of their first introduction, but he was very much regretting his actions now as he wondered if Jerjerrod was too late. Motti roiled and his small breakfast of caffeine as well as his medication came spewing out of his mouth, spraying both Jerjerrod’s forearm and the table. They had managed to somehow avoid getting almost any of it on Motti’s uniform, but the stench made Motti’s stomach twist again and he vomited a second time on the floor.

Jerjerrod left him no time to recover, hauling him over to the hygienic station closet. Instructing Motti to cleanse his mouth with water and rinse off his chin, Jerjerrod activated a sanitizing droid from another compartment beside the closet and ordered it to make quick work of Motti’s mess. As the droid eliminated all traces of the vomit, Motti swirled water once more around in his mouth, then spat. He faced Jerjerrod for examination and the commander pushed him away from the faucet to clean off the vomit from his own sleeve.

“Do something about the sweat on your face,” Jerjerrod advised as he scrubbed at the stains.

Dabbing at his forehead with the back of his sleeve, Motti wondered if he looked as close to collapse as he felt. No amount of powder could conceal what was so obvious now.

Jerjerrod rinsed the last remnants of the vomit down the drain, dried off his sleeve as best he could, and then motioned for Motti to step closer for examination. He gave Motti a much lighter tap on each cheek than before to bring some color back into his face.

“Now, go sit, and try to act like you didn’t just overindulge on a substance you shouldn’t have. And keep your mouth shut; I can still smell it on your breath.”

Jerjerrod took his seat opposite Motti and his expression clearly said, _Not one word_ as the Joint Chiefs began to trickle in. Though he had been curious before as to the visual identity of most of them, Motti was only focused now on doing his part to greet them curtly and then look away. General Sulles sat down on his right, General Noyce on his left, though neither had many words for Motti.

The last member to arrive was the most newly appointed one: Admiral Piett who didn’t look altogether sure how he had managed to achieve such a thing. Piett’s seat was two to Motti’s left and though his brow furrowed at Motti’s appearance, Motti gave an indiscernible shake of his head to let Piett know now was not the time to ask.

“What is that horrid smell?” asked General Sulles, wrinkling his nose.

Motti suddenly became overly interested in the fingernails on his left hand as he feigned ignorance. He was all too aware of how very loud his own heartbeat was in his ears and wondered if anyone else could hear it.

“My apologies, on inspection rounds this morning, a sanitizing droid malfunctioned and spilled its contents,” lied Jerjerrod. “It managed to cover most of my forearm in whatever liquids it had been carrying and I did my best to cleanse myself as well as my uniform before the council convened. If it is too much of a distraction, I will excuse myself to change out my uniform.”

“That won’t be necessary,” said General Mullisk, activating the ventilation system for the room. “This should clear up shortly. I would suggest a thorough cleaning of that uniform upon completion of this briefing, Commander, or that smell is like as not to never come out."

No one spoke any further about it and Motti’s pulse slowed once again, only to resume its rapid beat as the Sith lord entered the chamber without giving pause or recognition to any of them.

“Rebel activity has increased in the Outer Rim territories,” said Lord Vader without preamble. “Diversionary tactics only, but deliberately detected as a means of hiding their true whereabouts as well as their numbers. Security has therefore been increased around the shield generator on the forest moon and four additional Star Destroyers have been deployed to orbit it. There will be no means of landing on or leaving the moon without a code clearance. All systems will be placed on high alert, all flight activity suspended unless authorized. An attack by the rebels is expected, but preventable.”

Vice Admiral Towitz seemed to think otherwise. “As preventable as their attack was on this station’s precursor? They managed to conduct a complete readout of the Death Star and exploit a weakness none of the Joint Chiefs could have predicted. How are we to be reassured that the same fate will not befall this ship, if it carries the same flaws?”

“The plans had been unknowingly transmitted to the rebels and Governor Tarkin anticipated a full-scale assault from the rebels by using every fighter and cruiser in their arsenal,” said Jerjerrod. “He did not believe the rebels capable of penetrating the shield even with their full military force and was therefore unphased by a handful of fighter pilots. That oversight was what led to the battle station’s obliteration, not any fault of the ship’s design. Nevertheless, this station’s exhaust ports have been well armored, preventing another attack of the same nature. Any approaching snub ships would be unable to breach the infrastructure unless the shield generator located on the forest moon is deactivated. That feat is only possible by complete annihilation of the shield generator and the generator will be heavily guarded. Rest assured, Admiral, we are taking all safety measures necessary to avoid such a reoccurrence.”

General Noyce, a balding man with the same beady look Motti had come to loathe in Admiral Tagge, confidently joined in with his own observations. “In any case, the rebels cannot land on a single planet or moon in this system without us being alerted to their presence. We have Star Destroyers positioned to orbit every globe and TIE fighters standing by to deploy if any unathorized ships attempt to outmaneuver ours. And Endor is the most heavily guarded of all of them. Any attack made on our fleet would be only glorifying suicide on their part.”

How disturbingly similar those words seemed to Motti when his confidence in the Death Star had been unwavering. But now that the station was only three quarters built and the rebels much stronger than they had ever been, he had erred on the side of caution rather than confidence. He would not live to be responsible for a second failure—Vader would see to that.

“I would caution you against your underestimation of the rebels’ capabilities,” said Commander Brenax. “Twice now we have engaged them in open combat and twice they have not only dealt us crippling blows and avoided capture, but achieved such a feat both times with not even a quarter of the force we have.”

“We were unprepared for the manner in which they eluded us as well as their open act of defiance in launching an assault on the trenches, but we are anticipating their interference this time. When they come, we will be ready, and any resistance we encounter will be dealt with swiftly and punishingly,” General Noyce persevered.

“The rebels have found ways to slip onto the most heavily guarded ships and evade our most experienced pilots when pursued thanks to their own competence as well as the incompetence of several of our commanding officers,” said Lord Vader.

Admiral Ozzel, Captain Needa, and Motti himself, to name a few, though no one did as of yet. Motti felt strongly that Vader was veering the conversation down an avenue that would undoubtedly end in pointing the finger of blame at those responsible for the rebels’ first victory.

“Do not underestimate their potential for achieving the seemingly impossible. Inability to comprehend what a desperate rabble of bush pilots can do when pushed far enough is what led to the demolition of the first battle station.”

Motti dug his fingernails hard into his knee in anticipation of Vader’s indictment. Surely now the Sith would point out that Motti had put too much faith in the battle station before, and Motti would then have the decision to challenge that allegation or accept it.

General Noyce’s own ignorance deflected any accusation that might have come. “The Rebel Alliance is weak. They have but a meager handful of fighters to challenge us and so pointless skirmishes and covert teams are all they are capable of conjuring now.”

Despite the situation and the horrible memories it brought back, Motti found himself struggling to hold back a grin. General Noyce was about to overstep his boundaries with Vader and earn himself some unwanted attention from the Sith lord. Motti knew better now from firsthand experience, knew what Vader would accept as far as polite quarrelling and outright stupidity, and Noyce was unwittingly crossing into the latter.

“So long as their commanders are a Jedi and a vengeful senator, the rebels will never truly be obsolete,” said Vader dangerously.

“A Jedi with no master, as you claimed before, and a former princess with more luck to her name than skill,” said Noyce. “If this is all the rebels can rely on to lead them, I assure you, they will cease to exist not long after—“

Motti heard the thunderous footfall as Vader moved out from beside Commander Jerjerrod. He couldn’t help himself and dared to watch Noyce for reaction. The fool would see…

“My apologies, Lord Vader, I meant no disrespect,” said Noyce hastily. “I only upheld the highest regard for our officers and troops and have such faith in their capabilities to protect this station.”

The fabric around Motti’s neck felt constricting. He tugged at it more in recollection than current irritation. If Vader chose to make an example of Noyce, Motti knew he would suffer a relapse of some sort, even if the Sith’s anger was not directed at him.

All eyes were on Noyce and Vader, intrigued and petrified as to what would happen next. Piett’s eyes were cast respectfully down. He knew what would come next, had seen it happen to one of the eldest members of their boyhood circle of companions. The admiral obviously did not need a visual reminder.

Commander Jerjerrod, however, was watching Motti with seeming disinterest, though Motti knew the commander had been waiting for a few moments for Motti to acknowledge him. Motti ran his finger around his collar once again as he felt Lord Vader pass behind him to approach Noyce. Logic told him that Vader had no cause to give him so much as a glance at this moment; Motti had said and done nothing. And yet, the walls seemed to be closing in on him.

_Steady_.

He heard his commander’s voice, or rather, imagined what Jerjerrod was trying to tell him from across the table as Motti focused on something, anything besides what was about to happen beside him. He watched a light on the wall just behind Jerjerrod’s ear, nonresponsive to all else until Vader’s breath sounded what seemed like inches from Motti’s own neck and his body made an involuntary jump. His fingernails had broken the fabric of his pant leg and were now severing skin as he buried them deeper still.

Vader spoke, and it was to a silenced room. “You fall into the disappointing category of officers who let their own stupidity cloud their judgment, General. Constant vigilance has served the rebels well against many of those officers and the rebels have endured. Can you guess where the latter are now?”

No response came from Noyce. Perhaps he had nodded, but it did not sound as though Vader had begun strangling him yet.

“If you are to continue your service to the Empire, you must learn to respect the resilience of its enemies,” Vader continued. “Is that not so, Admiral Motti?”

And there it was.

Vader had sprung the question on him at the least suspecting moment, hoping to catch Motti off guard like an instructor expecting to find distracted pupils during a crucial test-taking session of academics. Never had Motti been so fearful of how his answer might bode with his instructor. He turned just enough in his seat to see that Vader’s helmet was positioned upward, clearly on him and not the general seated beside him.

He was going to vomit again and this time, in projectile fashion. He opened his mouth and heard three words devoid of emotion come out. “Yes, my lord.”

There was no doubt that even through his assisted breathing apparatus, Vader could smell the fear on Motti, but for the eyes to see, Motti was calm. He could sense that the Sith was trying to push the silence on and weasel a word or two more out of him, but he had answered his lord’s question with no more and no less than was required of him.

“There will be no room for strategic oversights this time,” said Commander Jerjerrod, breaking the stillness between Motti and Vader. “A thorough scheduled examination of the shield generators will follow the conclusion of this meeting as planned. Those assigned to it will be the only ones with access to the activation codes. Myself and admirals Motti and Piett will personally see to the inspection. As overseer and commander of this battle station, it is my responsibility and therefore my duty to be one of the individuals with access to the codes. It also falls onto my subordinate and second-in-command, Admiral Motti, to carry out my duties per instruction if I am unable to. This provides insurance in the case of any attack on this station by the rebels that might render myself or Admiral Motti unable to relay the access codes and from there, Admiral Piett would then take over command of the generator’s operations.”

Vader’s attention was now entirely on Jerjerrod and Motti used the distraction to clear the dampness from his eyes, for he had been holding his stare with the unblinking mask in determination to not show one sign of weakness.

“Any interference, any unscheduled arrivals by ships of any kind is to be reported directly to me,” finished Vader. “I expect movement from the rebels quite soon and I know that my quarry, Commander Skywalker will be among them. He and Senator Organa are to be brought directly to me, unharmed. All other rebels are to be terminated on sight. Dismissed.”

One by one the officers stood, some joining on the way out to converse on the finer points of the meeting, but Motti made sure he was the last to leave, straightening his collar and checking his armpits for telltale perspiration. He had not stepped out of the chamber for half a second when he was met with Jerjerrod grabbing him by the front of his uniform and shoving him into the nearest utility closet along a sub-service corridor.

“You absolute idiot. How long have you been binging the capsules?” asked the commander as he shut the door behind them.

“I haven’t been _binging_ ,” said Motti in indignation.

“I went to great lengths to procure this stimulant for you and for my efforts, I walk in on you in the middle of an intoxication minutes before Lord Vader himself entered the room. It’s only by my good sense to arrive early that your remains aren’t being broken down in the trash compactor right now. If you ever misuse this privilege again, I will confiscate everything not bolted down in your quarters and have you court-martialed. Your ignorance and negligence could have put not only yourself, but me in danger as well.”

“It was a precaution. You know how the prospect of close encounters with Vader thrills me. Did you expect me to go into that meeting without any drug-induced assistance?”

“You’ve been making contact with Vader for months without needing to down half the container,” said Jerjerrod cooly.

“Mostly over hologram. What just happened in there was an exact replica of what happened to me, only General Noyce was fortunate enough to show fear before Vader got a hold on his throat and that deterred Vader from going that last step.” Even as he said it, he felt a stab of discrimination. Vader had deliberately stalked past Motti to remind him of their first encounter. General Noyce had never been in danger; it was simply a ploy, Vader’s way of toying with Motti’s unstable emotions. No doubt he sensed Motti’s unease due to the near overdose and was attempting to bring the source of Motti’s ill appearance to light, to dismiss him from the council if possible, only Motti had matched him and stood his ground.

“I was walking straight back into the same sort of situation I had barely escaped last time and you thought I would be able to face it with my wits alone?” he asked Jerjerrod in continuation of their argument.

“I thought you had better sense than to resort to idiocy as a means of escape.”

“It was a lapse in judgment, a mistake I’ll not make again, but I won’t stand for you threatening me or berating me, either. If you have a problem with how I choose to compose myself, you’re welcome to report me and I’ll call you a liar for it. I’m finally regaining a sense of normalcy, and I’ll thank you to not interfere with that, Commander.”

“You came to ask me for help, so I gave it, but if you’re going to abuse it, don’t expect me to cover for your carelessness again. I’ll not allow your ineptitude to put me in the line of fire, and if snark and back-handed gratuity is all I can expect for coming to your aid when you were on the verge of a mental collapse, then I would just as soon you refrain from contacting me for any future needs you might have. My aid is not given lightly.”

“I never asked you for help of any sort,” Motti growled.

“Indeed. You’re not a man to ask or beg for anything, and yet the trembling, sweating, ghost of a man that sat on my bed and told me how he couldn’t sleep because of his fear of a dying religion’s invisible source of power spoke otherwise. You’re an ungrateful bastard, Admiral. Maybe _that_ is the reason why no one came to your aid; perhaps they felt you were fully deserving of it when they saw what a despicable human being you are.”

“If you’ve quite finished—“

“I would suggest you report to the infirmary, but a quick blood sample would be all the meddroid needs to see that you are in possession of a rationed substance. Therefore, you will take your vitals when you return to your quarters and send the report to me. I expect a report this evening as well as tomorrow morning and if I do not have one, you will find me blasting my way through your door.”

“Those precautions don’t sound like the actions of a man who’s washed his hands of such a disrespectful inferior officer,” called Motti after him.

“If you die, they’ll inspect your body and find traces of the capsules and link them back to me all the same. If you’re going to die, I need to be aware of it so I can dispose of your body,” said Jerjerrod savagely. “Dismissed, Admiral.”

The commander went to let himself out into the corridor and Motti was faced with the moral dilemma of asking for forgiveness from his commanding officer or ignoring the man and all he had done because Motti was unable to ask for help even when he most needed it. He needed those capsules, but theft was a serious crime, even if the intentions were good ones. Jerjerrod was too interfering for his own good and his actions would not be seen as honorable. He made other men’s business his own business and if Motti suffered another lapse in judgment where the capsules were concerned, Jerjerrod would take the fall for him, regardless of his statement that he would do otherwise.

Motti refused to have any more blood on his hands, least of all the blood belonging to one of the few friends he had left.

“Tiaan.”

The use of his name once again pulled Jerjerrod up short and he turned back to see what words Motti had for him. Motti reached into his inner breast pocket and brought out the container with the remainder of his now addictive drug in it. He held the container out to Jerjerrod without looking at him.

“You’d best take them now. I don’t possess the willpower to wean myself off of them on my own.”

Jerjerrod took the container but did not tuck it away or chuck it into the garbage chute beside them. He opened the top and dumped the entire contents into his gloved palm to count them. Until now, Motti had religiously used the capsules every day on a dosage of one within any twenty-four hour period. He had a twenty-eight days supply left, which—if Jerjerrod had been counting the days, as Motti suspected he had—meant that commander would know how many he had swallowed that morning.

“You took _six_?” asked Jerjerrod in horror. “Do you have any idea what might have happened to you? Your liver could be bleeding, for all we know.”

“It’s not,” Motti assured him. “With your vomit-inducing methods, it all came up before any more damage than a bloody nose and break out of sweat could happen.”

“Didn’t you _count_ them as you took them this morning? This wasn’t a purposeful attempt to take the maximum dosage, this was you being stupid.”

“I didn’t count them, if it matters. My mind was elsewhere.”

“Clearly. Admiral, I know you to be a meticulous man to the point of being obsessively compulsive about things. How desperate were you to provide a stimulus for today’s meeting that you would be so careless as to dump a handful of capsules into your hand and hope it was the right amount?” 

Motti knew he heard concern in Jerjerrod’s tone, maybe even pity, sympathy, and he hated it. He hated men looking at him like a weakling that needed constant surveillance. Upon leaving the academy, he had had none of his former schoolmates assigned to the same regional training and as such, had had to fend for himself. He was used to proving in life how little he needed his fellow man but this damnable predicament courtesy of Vader had dashed all of his hard work.

When Motti didn’t grant him a response, Jerjerrod asked a secondary question. “How have you been sleeping?”

“Bluntly, I’ve just _been_ sleeping as opposed to thrashing about all night.”

“Then link your com to mine tonight and I’ll wake you if I hear anything.”

“A thoughtful proposition, but unnecessary.” If there was one thing he would not resort to, it was having his superior listening to him breathing at odd hours to wake him from potential nightmares as a result of capsule withdrawal. It was difficult enough having this conversation right now in which Motti knew he both looked and sounded helpless when he absolutely was not.

“Then, here…” Jerjerrod offered one capsule to him. “If you still feel that you have need of them and you refuse to accept my offer, then I will provide you with one a day to ensure that you don’t abuse your medication.”

This was humiliating, having to report to Jerjerrod daily to obtain a necessary medication like a child being monitored with a device that had the potential to be lethal. Motti was not having it.

“Now, see here, I’ll not be—“

“I’ve provided you with two options: you may take one or the other, but you may not abstain.”

Grinding his teeth behind thinly set lips, Motti held out his hand for the capsule and Jerjerrod placed it there.

“Dis _missed_ , Admiral,” he said again, and left Motti to contemplate whether his mental state was worth it, or if he would be better off chucking every pill he received into the incinerator.


	3. A Life of Servitude

**ADMIRAL PIETT**

Standing at parade rest, he surveyed the forest moon. In a few short hours, he, Commander Jerjerrod, and Admiral Motti would be conducting their examination and final preparations to activate the shield generator. If they were lucky, they would have a moment or two of privacy to exchange words, perhaps discuss how ill Motti appeared at the last Joint Council briefing. If they were unlucky, they would be able to exchange solemn glances and nothing more.

It had been so long, so terribly, terribly long since Firmus Piett had been able to emotionally release anything more than an indiscernible sigh. One did not have the luxury of emoting in the Imperial Fleet. It was a lifetime service of blank expressions, submissive bows, and underlying fear, but never an open demonstration of anything. It was simply not done.

When his superior Admiral Kendal Ozzel had met his end, Piett was allowed to straighten his collar as a form of reaction, but was forbidden from saying anything that might suggest at a hint of emotion toward the man lying dead on the floor next to him, not that Piett was overly fond of his commanding officer. Admiral Ozzel had been an impatient man, prone to irritable eruptions. For whatever reason, he had never gotten on well with Piett, perhaps due to Piett’s lack of callousness that seemed required for every commanding officer aboard the fleet’s many ships. And so when Piett had turned curiously to see Ozzel’s hand attempting to remove something from his throat that was not there, he had a suspicion as to what was occurring without feeling remorse or delight. He simply did not care one way or the other and it was his lack of sympathy that had disturbed him far more than anything else. Seeing the admiral die before him had not been nearly as unnerving as Lord Vader’s proclamation that Piett himself was to fill the recently vacated position.

Afterward, he had ordered troopers to remove the body and then carried on about his work, though admittedly doused in sweat from the ordeal. His fear stemming from the Sith lord’s actions had overtaken anything else his body might have been trying to project. It seemed that fear was the only thing he was capable of experiencing when everything else had been drained from him in preparation for serving under Lord Vader.

It was the rebel freighter, the damnable _Millenium Falcon_ that caused such discord among the fleet following the Hoth disaster. Piett had followed Lord Vader down onto the planet and seen the carnage following the battle. They found only scattered remains of what had once been General Veers’s AT-AT walker and the general was pronounced dead on sight, not that they ever found a trace of any human bodies left, only splatters of blood. Later, playback from the interior cockpit footage relayed back to the fleet hovering above the system would show a rebel pilot spinning wildly but deliberately into Veers’s walker, instantly killing all inside operations. The walker had then exploded before it could hit the frozen ground and any human remains had been melted down under the intense heat of the blast.

Piett had grown numb to death in numbers, but only because he so rarely knew anyone in the tally of the dead. But not this time. This time a great soldier and leader of the Galactic Empire was gone as if he had never existed.

Veers was two years ahead of Piett and Captain Needa at the academy and several more in front of Commander Jerjerrod and Admiral Motti, but he had no shame in fraternizing with lower classmen and had put in a good word for the youngest of their academic group to help them register for an advanced class when they were but second year students (and it would be this class that was the gateway to Jerjerrod and Motti constructing the plans to what would become the Death Star). Veers would not mother the younger classmen, refusing to give help except when he felt it was essential. Renowned for his intellect, no-nonsense approach to life, and his motto that he believed students would succeed or fail based on their loyalty to the cause, he was admired by all, both students and instructors alike. His name was one most graduates knew and respected and within half a year of leaving the academy, he had managed to secure the title of lieutenant aboard the _Omnipresent_ , a Star Destroyer that at the time was under command of Admiral Ozzel. As a ground-force tactician, his strategies brought the Empire many victories over squabbling resistant forces and he was promoted quickly until he held the rank of general and the same respect as—if not more than—Ozzel. It was therefore to Piett’s great joy to be assigned as a fleet captain on the same ship as Veers.

His reunion with his old friend was not, however, a joyous occasion but merely an acknowledgment of one another, as Piett had expected it to be. A salute, a nod, and then dismissal as Veers was now his superior, but it was still more than Piett could have asked for after some years being isolated from any familiar academy-day faces. Veers would make a point of passing Piett’s post at least twice a day to glance at him and nod. It was not much by any means, but the fact that his friend made an effort to extend familiarity meant a great deal to Piett who was starved for that sort of interface. Their last interaction had been just before Veers deployed his men to engage the rebels in surface attack combat. 

Piett had saluted him as Veers boarding the ship that contained his landing party and Veers returned the gesture. An hour later he was dead.

It was Piett’s duty as newly instated admiral to be sure that Veers’s family received condolence news. He gazed upon the smoldering pile of what had once been Veers’s last command and wondered how he was supposed to compose this note. How would he say that Veers had died? Valiantly, with dedication to the Empire. His name would be honored for years to come.

But apparently not given a second thought by the Sith, for Vader had ordered Piett to follow him as he relayed orders to have the rebel ships tracked and destroyed, save for the freighter that had given him so much grief during his last encounter with it. They were interrupted by a snowtrooper announcing that a small handful of rebels had been captured, and he then led Piett and Vader to one of the hangars where the unlucky fighters had been corralled.

Vader scanned them over, obviously searching for a familiar face but finding none. Then, without a backwards glance as he began to stalk off, he ordered the swift execution of the survivors. Piett had managed to look away before the blasters fired, but he did hear several bodies hit the compacted snowy ground in the aftermath.

Back on board the _Executor_ , Piett ordered that the ship rendezvous with the _Avenger_ , as the latter ship had reported a sighting of the _Falcon_. Captain Needa had had the command of the _Avenger_ and was closing in quickly on the rebel freighter when the _Executor_ caught up to her. Piett was able to see the _Falcon_ darting about wildly to try and evade the _Avenger_ ’s aft cannons but then the tiny ship was lost on the starboard side and Piett had to wait for further news.

His confidence in Needa’s abilities was not as high as it should have been, but Needa was a man who had always struggled to obtain that last morsel of achievement, falling just short in classes, in training, in rank. It was not from lack of trying, but rather a spout of bad luck that plagued his family. And what little luck he had was about to permanently run dry.

Piett met his friend as the captain’s shuttle docked aboard the _Executor_ and Needa stepped out purposefully.

“I have a report to make personally to Lord Vader,” Needa had said.

“You’ll find him waiting for you at the bridge,” said Piett with a sense of foreboding. “Have you captured the _Falcon_?”

His answer came in the form of Needa paling at the prospect of what he now had to do.

“You should return to your command and give a holographic report,” Piett cautioned. He knew the only outcome of this situation if Needa proceeded but Needa was either in denial or suicidal.

Needa appeared microscopically wounded that Piett had suggested he take his escape route while he still had one. “That would be a cowardly thing to do for an officer of my rank. I will speak with Lord Vader.”

_You fool._

Piett would have given nearly anything to be able to grab Needa and bodily throw him back into his shuttle rather than let him take the walk through the bowels of the ship to go to where Vader was waiting on the command deck. It was not Piett’s place to stand by and listen to Needa make his report, but as he was on recovery command to pick up where Needa had left off, he was still able to hear every word exchanged between his master and his friend.

Needa made a respectable bow when he approached Vader and then launched into what was an admirable speech. “The _Millennium Falcon_ charged us in what appeared to be a desperate run and then disappeared entirely from our scopes. We know that she was unable to make the jump to lightspeed, but there was no trace of her anywhere within a hundred kilometers.”

Piett wouldn’t have been surprised to see his own heart hammering through his uniform if he had cared to look down at that moment, but he kept his sights focused entirely on the viewscreen in front of him, staring without seeing.

“Then what,” breathed Vader, “is your purpose for reporting this in person when a simple holographic message would have sufficed?”

“As it was my charge to collect the ship, I personally wanted to offer my sincerest apologies for my failure and to assure you that it will not happen again. We will have the _Falcon_ within our sights again soon enough,” said Needa and Piett’s last hope for his friend vanished in those final words.

“You believed that it would be far more beneficial to waste my time in personally reporting your ineptitude?” asked Vader. “You are gravely mistaken. However…”

Here, Needa had taken his eyes off of the hulking Dark Lord and his imminent doom to find Piett standing just feet away at the main control panel. Out of the bond they shared in their younger years and the amount of respect they had come to gain for one another in the later ones, Piett granted him two seconds of his time. Two seconds in which he expressed his farewell to his friend before he knew he had to look away.

It had been mere days ago that he had discovered one friend’s death and now he was about to witness another without being able to do a damn thing about it.

_Damn you, Lorth. Damn your nobility you poor, stupid fool._

Piett had grasped the back of the communications officer’s seat to steady himself as he heard a low, threatening hum and a sharp intake of breath. 

_Eyes forward_ , he warned himself. 

He listened to Needa’s confused gagging as the captain’s last minutes were spent wondering what in the worlds he had done to deserve this sort of end. As an Imperial in a waging war, one expected to die in two fashions: in battle against the rebels or at Lord Vader’s feet and of the two, Needa certainly had not wished for this outcome. By some small mercy, the Sith did not allow the execution to last as long as Ozzel’s had. It was a few short seconds of rattling breath, a thud as Needa’s knees hit the metal grating on the floor, the crackling of his windpipe giving way, and then the cushioned sound of a body simply rolling over and ceasing movement.

“Apology accepted, Captain Needa.”

Mockery. A jab at the man’s death. Amusement for the qualities Needa held in high regard: honesty, loyalty, accountability. Wasted on the Sith.

“Admiral Piett, you will report the captain’s replacement to all commands,” Vader had told Piett as Needa’s body was hauled off by two deck troopers to the holding closet reserved for on-board casualties in need of burial preparation. “And then you will drop the man’s body with the rest of the garbage. His uniform is to be stripped of badges, as he died doing a disservice to the Empire.”

“Yes, my lord,” said Piett nasally. He didn’t trust himself to say more when his insides were shaking with both sorrow and fury. 

Lorth Needa had died in the line of duty and was to be stripped of his titles for disappointing the Sith. Did a poor mistake really warrant such a dishonorable send-off? It made no difference now and neither did contemplating it. There was nothing to be done about it even if Piett believed Needa had not been in the wrong. It would not soften Vader and it would not put him in a more favorable light with the Sith.

He gave the communications officer the order to establish a connection to the Death Star, preparing himself for the message he was charged with relaying. This would be a test for him, a chance for Lord Vader to see if one of his commanding officers could proceed as instructed while under an enormous amount of stress. Fear to not upset the Sith, sorrow over his friend’s death, rage at how and why it had occurred, and now determination to remain collected while delivering the news, it was all a compilation of what was sure to be an implosion.

“Connection successful, sir, projecting now…”

The image of Commander Jerjerrod appeared but his expression relaxed when he saw that it was Piett contacting him and not the Sith.

“Admiral, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Lord Vader wishes to inform you that _Avenger_ has passed into the control of Captain Renning. A letter of condolence should be composed to be sent to Captain Needa’s family on Coruscant. His body is being prepared for an impromptu space burial with dishonorable discharge, as he failed in his duties to capture a rebel ship of great significance.”

Nothing had ever proved harder than emotionlessly spewing out his rehearsed lines and seeing Jerjerrod’s equally indifferent reaction to receiving them. Both knew Lorth Needa had not failed, but rather irked the Sith lord at a most inopportune moment by his misjudgment of the situation. And to be stricken of the titles that earned him his premature death, it was a difficult capsule to swallow.

Jerjerrod recovered faster than Piett did from his own thoughts. “That is most unfortunate. His family will be contacted.”

“They should be informed that he did not suffer.”

“Duly noted. Any other news to report, Admiral?”

“None, Commander.”

“Very good. End transmission.”

The commander’s image disappeared in a line of electric blue, leaving the cleared space before Piett empty.

“Next, sir,” prompted the connecting officer.

“Admiral Motti, Death Star.”

It took a few scrambling moments to find the connection, for the Star Destroyer had passed between the nearby planet’s moon and sun and the frequency had to be reestablished. When the connection went through, however, Piett was half hoping that there would be no one to transmit the hologram to wherever Admiral Motti might be at this time.

Motti, it appeared, was seated at his desk and looked up in surprise to see Piett’s likeness appear on his hologram projector.

“Admiral, this is an unexpected visit,” he greeted.

“If Commander Jerjerrod has not already informed you, I wished to report that Captain Needa is recently deceased. As second-in-command, I believed that you should also be notified in case your superior has not yet had the time or means to brief you and I would rather you hear it from the source than from gossip.”

Piett knew he had included more information than Vader had instructed him to, but he was unable to help himself. He needed _someone_ to see the enormous strain he was under to try and convey his sorrow without speaking the words.

As Jerjerrod had, Motti appeared to care very little for this news, though the telltale manner in which he straightened his posture told Piett he was bracing for worse news yet to come.

“The manner of his death?” asked Motti, clearly not wanting to know the answer.

“He failed in a mission personally assigned to him by Lord Vader,” said Piett carefully. One did not simply accuse the Sith lord of murder, even in nearly private conversations.

He could see Motti swallow and run a hand subconsciously over his neck. Whether that indicated that Motti knew of how Needa had met his demise, it was difficult to say. A second or two of fidgeting and then Motti was as unreadable as Jerjerrod had been.

“Has a replacement been assigned, or are you in need of an officer from our end?”

“Captain Renning has taken up command. That is all to report.”

“Thank you, Admiral.”

Piett’s communicator did not have to sever the connection, for Motti had turned it off himself before his true feelings were expressed for the recordings to pick up. Piett envied him the opportunity to grieve.

Six more reports he had had to make before he could tend to the last and most unpleasant charge at hand. He had not told Jerjerrod or Motti that Vader had assigned the task of condemning Needa’s body to space to him. He knew his friends’ brimming hatred for the blatant disrespect for officers and they would see Lord Vader’s act as one of sadism, knowing Piett would find it a difficult order to carry out.

Needa’s body had been dropped unceremoniously in the holding room. His badge and bars had been removed, as had his cap, gloves, and boots to be used for the next unfortunate officer. It was the final insult that saw Piett bite down on his glove and face the window for a moment to compose himself. For Needa’s body to be so carelessly discarded as if he had not once been a living human being who sought only to do his job well, it shook Piett down to his core and made his legs unsteady.

A letter of commiseration would be sent to Needa’s surviving family on Coruscant with no mention as to how Needa had met his end. If Piett’s memory served correctly, only Needa’s mother was still living and she would never know that her son had been needlessly slaughtered by the Sith lord whom he served for the simple act of apologizing. Any other superior officer would have seen Needa’s quickness to take responsibility for his failure as a commendable act but Lord Vader had no such proclivity.

Seeing to the task at hand, Piett took the black bag set aside for Needa’s body to be stuffed in and positioned it at the top of Needa’s head. Needa’s eyes were still open, dilated in death and swollen from the effort of choking on his own breath. One thing Piett would not be doing was sending his friend to eternal sleep in the same position in which he had died. He closed Needa’s eyelids and then touched his brow in the only gesture of farewell he could muster, for he had already exposed too much of his inner turmoil.

He pulled the bag down over Needa’s face, wriggling the limbs one side at a time to make them fit in what would be their tomb. The last to go in was Needa’s feet and then Piett sealed off the bag, creating an airtight compartment that would preserve the body until it hit something hard enough to rip the material, then the body would disintegrate.

All that remained was placing the body in the chute that led down into the garbage disposal.

The garbage. Thrown out like refuse, like a malfunctioning droid, like scraps of filth.

Piett placed Needa’s lower body and then torso into the chute, hating himself as he did so. The whiff of stale waste drifted up from the shaft and he gagged on the stench, holding his breath as he positioned Needa’s body. Aware that he was being filmed, that Vader himself might be watching him for signs of the human limitations, he held on for the briefest second that he dared and then let the bagged body slide out of sight. He fell from his knees to his rear end with the effort of lifting the cadaver, for he was not a man who boasted muscle and hoisting up what had been a little more than his entire body weight had drained him more than he initially thought it would.

Collecting himself and stepping off-screen to wipe at his face, he left the room as he had found it, minus the body.

/ /

He hurried down off of the boarding ramp to his shuttle and found the ground to be squishy and uneven underfoot. His last time setting foot on a planet or moon of any sort had been the ice world of the rebels’ then-stronghold in the Hoth system. While the conditions had been unforgiving there, this forest moon offered a muggy sort of humidity that was not entirely unpleasant, as it hinted at the promise of rain, something Piett missed terribly from his mountainous home planet of Axxila.

A ground squadron met him and escorted him to a terrain-specific speeder where Commander Jerjerrod and Admiral Motti would join them shortly. It was an inconvenience in having to travel over-land to the shield generator bunker, but as the bunker was inaccessible from the air, a ground approach was the only way to come up on it. They all had made a point of not having much foot traffic to and from the bunker to avoid confronting the very slight possibility that rebels might have infiltrated the moon and were now in search of ways to sabotage the shield generator. There were a degree of variables that would have had to occur for the rebels to have landed on Endor and they would begin and end with Piett being eradicated by Lord Vader for failing in every aspect to perform his duty. As recently promoted Fleet Admiral, it was Piett’s duty to see to it that each and every one of the men under his command knew the importance of repelling and reporting rebel activity, but any mistakes made by his men would fall on his shoulders. He would be the one Vader punished, not the men who had made the actual error.

Presently, a second squadron came into view, at the center of which was Commander Jerjerrod and Admiral Motti, looking extremely out of place in their uniforms set against the natural greenery around them. With hardly more than a nod of recognition in greeting, they all climbed into one speeder with Jerjerrod up front with the navigator and Piett and Motti behind.

At breakneck speed, the pilot took off with no signs of slowing down, for this was a route he had taken multiple times. Piett removed his cap and placed it in his lap, for though it was built of sturdy material and designed to fit almost uncomfortably tight on his head, he did not trust that the wind would not whip it off during their short journey. In the front, Jerjerrod did the same but not Motti who had never adhered to the complete Imperial uniform. Higher ranking officials were not required to wear caps aboard the Death Star under Grand Moff Tarkin’s rule and even with the man’s death, Motti was never to be seen with a cap.

It seemed like something Lord Vader would find as an excuse to torment Motti but surprisingly, the Sith did not seem to care about uniform any more than he cared for the men wearing them.

At the moment, Motti did appear to be aware of the wind at all as he sank low in his seat, closing his eyes. For a man who had not stepped foot on solid ground for years, one would think that Motti would be highly attuned to the constant motions of ships and speeders, but Motti had always suffered from a weak stomach when it came to that sort of thing. Piett thought it best to not bother him lest Motti should find the need to retch on him.

Not soon enough, they came within sight of the bunker that was already well hidden in the trees and undergrowth but to access it, they first had to cross what looked like a murky pond that had unintentionally created something of a moat around all sides of their destination.

“Recent flooding has led to some rough patches, sir,” their navigator told Jerjerrod. “Mind where you step. And we’re coming up on an area which you’ll have to navigate your way over. We’ve laid down flotation strips across the bog.”

“I want a proper bridge construct placed here within the week,” said Motti authoritatively. “This is ridiculous and an ample waste of time in what could be critical moments. It can be collapsible and only accessible from one side, but when I come to do my follow-up inspection, I don’t want to see these flotation devices.”

“Yes, sir.”

The strips were solid but buoyant and had been programmed to take riders from one side to the other in a circular pattern. The trick was stepping onto the next strip in the lineup before it floated too far out of reach and then struggling to keep balance on the narrow device. Piett supposed the fall would not be terribly devastating, if absolutely humiliating, but all the same, he was determined to remain upright. 

The navigator took the first strip as a demonstration and without letting one unoccupied strip pass, Jerjerrod stepped neatly onto the next with none of the wobbling the more experienced man had done. Motti went next, grumbling to himself as he swayed forward, back, and front again with his arms flailing in a rather undignified manner before he was able to level himself out. As a precaution, Piett put three strips between himself and Motti before mounting his own.

Motti’s flotation strip had almost come up alongside the opposite bank when part of the system failed, pitching him forward far enough to land half of him on ground and the other half into the drink. Piett was in the process of ordering a trooper to help fish the admiral out when Motti emerged from the pond with algae sticking to his sleeve and he peeled it off with disgust, daring either Piett or Jerjerrod to crack a smile at his misfortune. Neither so much as gave a twitch of their lips that would suggest that they found Motti’s tumble to be amusing. 

Their humor over such things had been too many years out of practice to work efficiently, but it did remind them of younger days when Motti was the source of much entertainment. He had been something of a jokester and a menace to their instructors, though none ever were able to point the finger of blame on him. He evaded punishment and yet delighted in causing mayhem whenever their studies became too dull. A slip into a fountain or pond was the exact sort of humor Motti would have delighted in but as any prankster discovered, it was not half as amusing when the tables had turned.

Rather venomously, Motti gave the order at the bunker entrance for all staff to clear out, leaving the bunker entirely in the hands of the three of them who had come to make it operational. It would have been easiest to take the lifts down to each level in descending order and conduct their inspection accordingly, but Jerjerrod insisted on using the staircase. On each level, they looked over the control panels, the backup generators, and the power units, all of which were currently on standby until Jerjerrod and Motti returned to the Death Star and punched in their access codes.

The three of them took turns inputting their DNA and entering the personalized key cards to accept their codes. In order of command, they received their activation codes with Motti going last and then stored the information away within their uniforms to be transferred to their own personal files aboard their respective ships. Then, only by entering the same data could they or anyone else unlock the codes.

Now with the data they had come for in their possession, they began the long walk back up the fifteen levels of stairs with Jerjerrod in the lead. Piett thought it might be an opportune moment to say anything that might need saying with their footfalls on the metal catwalk disfiguring their voices.

“If there is anything either of you believe that I should know off-record, now would be the time to tell me,” he offered rather forwardly.

“Nothing to report unless you absolutely must know what they were serving for the morning meal in the canteen,” said Motti.

“Not even the subject of your physical and mental state during that initial briefing a few months back?”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

“I’m afraid you’re an abysmal liar.”

“It’s taken care of,” interjected Jerjerrod, sounding impatient at the quarrelling happening below him. “You need not worry about it.”

Piett knew he should stop talking now to save his breath for the remaining fourteen flights, but he would not so easily be put out, especially from a conversation that he believed needed discussing at length. “It’s not so much a matter of me worrying over what happened but rather feeling that it’s my duty to be informed on all aspects of what goes on with my fellow officers.”

“As I’ve told you, it’s settled and—“

“No,” said Motti, cutting Jerjerrod short. “Not another word.”

This was not at all like Motti to speak over his commanding officer but also to be so reluctant to let Piett in on his inner turmoil now that he had the chance after so many months to speak his mind.

“There are thirteen staircases above us and I will bombard you with the same question for each and every one of them, Admiral Motti.”

“And you will receive silence as your reply for each and every one of them. Nearly all walls have ears.”

He was insinuating that their conversation could be relayed to Vader but to anyone listening, it might have sounded like Motti was worried that the rebels would somehow obtain a copy of their exchange. Piett, however, did not believe there was any such danger from either source.

“How long have you been medicating, Admiral?”

Motti stopped, turned around, and gave Piett one of the foulest looks he had ever received in his life from anyone.

“Do you have a death wish, Admiral Piett, because if you do, that’s your business but I certainly don’t and I’ll thank you to keep me out of any accusations you feel like placing,” he snarled.

“This is a maintenance shaft,” said Piett calmly. “This bunker is heavily guarded at the moment _from the outside_. As per our orders, all personnel have temporarily evacuated to give us complete privacy. There are recording devices at all main terminals on each level but not in the maintenance shaft. I have received a multitude of reports from this exact location and know its layout better than the men assigned here. I know where we would be compromised and here is not one of those locations.”

“If there was anything that needed to be reported to you, it would have been already and any delusions you might have about me needing a stimulus to perform the most basic of my duties will be put to rest here.”

Piett was not deterred by Motti’s confrontational nature any more now than he had been when the two of them were young men at the academy and Motti was several inches shorter. Piett did not quail under taller, larger men than him because despite his size, he was not a man easily swayed or discouraged—except where Lord Vader was concerned. Therefore, he knew Motti’s anger to be empty and cautionary.

“You’re still medicating,” said Piett without fear. “It’s an easy thing to see for those who know what you looked like before all of this.”

“On the move, gentlemen,” Jerjerrod prompted when Motti looked like he would very much like to throw Piett down what few flights they had ascended.

They rose in silence, but Piett knew he was close to breaking through to Motti for the man could only restrain himself for so long and a betraying factor of his illness was that he was now more prone to violent outbursts than he was ever known to be. Motti was not a man without anger, but did not engage in useless arguments or threaten to resort to fisticuffs to relay his point and so for him to do both now, it told Piett that whatever he was using, it did not render him entirely stable.

On the main level, the three men paused to regain their breaths and Piett discovered another sign of Motti’s condition: a bloody nose. He made a discrete gesture to the admiral to dab the blood away, but Motti did not catch on and so Piett had to verbally warn him.

“We’re about to pass a surveillance lens and you have blood on your face, Admiral.”

Terrified, Motti took a cloth from his pant pocket and wiped his face clean. Despite the heated exchange between them not five minutes ago, Motti looked to Piett to ensure that he had succeeded in clearing his face and Piett nodded.

“I believe we’ve been absent long enough to deem our inspection passable,” said Jerjerrod.

_Especially considering that that inspection ended well over ten minutes ago._

Motti made to punch in the code for the blast door when the corridor lights flickered and then died out completely, casting them all into impenetrable darkness.

“I don’t suppose either of you thought to bring a torch,” came Jerjerrod’s exasperated voice after a moment.

“It wasn’t high on my priority list to pack emergency crash landing essentials,” returned Motti.

“Now that the security tapes are not working, it might be an excellent time to tell me why you looked to be on the verge of collapse during that first conclusive briefing,” Piett proposed.

“I don’t think so.”

“Is it really that terrifying, or that humiliating?”

“Neither. It’s none of your business.”

“You almost soared completely out of your seat when Lord Vader passed behind you and you want to try and convince me that it was nothing I should concern myself with?”

“If I could only see you, I would kick you right in the—“

“CK-309, we’ve had a power outage inside the bunker and will need outside assistance to pry open the blast doors,” said Jerjerrod into what must have been his comlink. “CK-309, do you copy?”

However, it seemed that the comlink was also dead, which led Piett to believe the power was being jammed, manipulated from an outside source.

“Rebel infiltration?” he posed.

“Most likely, and if that’s the case, those on the outside won’t know about it until after the fact, which gives us all the more reason to speed the process along by trying to locate the power box. I believe it was just here…” Jerjerrod had obviously stepped away from them, toward the door, but instead of a noise of triumph at locating his quarry, they heard a loud, metallic _clank_ and then a noise of frustration from their senior officer.

“Found it, did you?” asked Motti condescendingly.

“No, that was the plumbing,” Jerjerrod groaned. “Blast, that hurt.”

“Even if you locate the power box in this darkness, what use will it be if you can’t see what you’re doing?” asked Piett. “Have you managed to take lessons in hotwiring blast doors in your spare time?”

“No, but messing about with it might sound the alarm from the outside, providing the incentive for the troopers out there to make their way in more hastily than they’re doing right now, _if_ they are.”

“And if that proves unsuccessful?”

“Ram your head against it and hope the thickness is enough to break it down,” offered Motti unhelpfully. “Commander, I would suggest that we—“

“Shhh,” said Jerjerrod suddenly, but Piett heard nothing. The bunker was completely soundproof from within and maintenance had ensured that not so much as a leak of outside air could find its way in without authorization. With the power shut down completely, there was no electric humming from the breakers or even a drip of the cooling liquid used to counteract the motherboard’s heat sync.

Piett felt Jerjerrod’s shoulder brush against his own as the commander passed him, now suddenly with the convenient ability to navigate the pitch-blackness without knocking into the plumbing.

“Both of you, at the ready…”


	4. An Imperial's Desire

**COMMANDER JERJERROD**

The bunker’s power outage was reported as just that and no one was the wiser apart from the three men who had been inside during the blackout. When the troopers had managed to pry open the doors from the other side just as the power came back on, Commander Jerjerrod, Admiral Motti, and Admiral Piett were standing quietly apparently waiting to be rescued. Motti made a great deal of fuss out of the damage the troopers had done to the blast doors, prompting Jerjerrod to order round-the-clock guards to man the entrance until the doors could be repaired and with that, they took their leave. This time, however, Motti decided to completely forgo the flotation strips and wade across the bog with no regard to his uniform rather than risk another mortifying fall.

He made for the perfect vexed officer, covering the somewhat shifty glances Jerjerrod and Piett exchanged with one another after the events of the bunker. All eyes were on the displeased admiral who Jerjerrod believed should have earned a medal purely for that performance alone.

They parted for their respective shuttles with Piett embarking to his command and Jerjerrod and Motti returning to the Death Star. On board the battle station, Jerjerrod stored his data in his personal quarters after relaying the codes himself into the main computer that would then link up to the bunker on the forest moon. Though none of them could see it, at Jerjerrod’s command, the shield generator was activated, encasing the Death Star in a protective bubble that rendered it impervious to outside attack. Now, the only way for any ship to enter into the station would be either through clearance code or complete deactivation and annihilation of the shield generator.

But the rebels were going to try to penetrate the shield anyway. The news came a few short months after the bunker power outage that rebel ships had been spotted amassing, but the rebels had jumped to lightspeed before more news could be reported. Therefore, Jerjerrod knew an attack to be inevitable as he and Motti received the news on the bridge two days prior and so it was not entirely unexpected that Lord Vader summoned the Joint Chiefs once again to discuss battle preparations, or so Jerjerrod believed would be the subject of this latest meeting. With the construction on the Death Star nearing its third phase of completion and the rebels once again gaining both courage and numbers, Joint Chief meetings had become a regular occurrence, but their last had been just four days previously and so this seemed much too soon to hold another for any reason other than to map out their lines of defense and counterattack.

A pleasant discovery the morning of Vader’s summons coupled with what would undoubtedly be a highly stressful time in the council chamber found Jerjerrod making his way once again to Motti’s quarters in the middle of the day. Motti answered the door again in an untidy uniform, though this time he had no excuse for looking so slipshod, for he was merely on a half hour reprieve from duty. When he saw who his company was, he sprang to attention.

“Something urgent, Commander?”

“At ease, Admiral, I was merely coming to give you this.”

Jerjerrod presented the single capsule he had found buried deep within his desk drawer. It must have fallen out when he placed the container in his desk for safekeeping as he rationed the capsules out to Motti but he recalled that at one point the container had spilled.

Motti took the capsule with a strange sort of hilarity and tucked it into his breast pocket. He returned to where he had been sitting at his wide spread window and Jerjerrod detected the pungent smell of something burning which turned out to be a straw-like object Motti now had clamped between his teeth.

“Have you completely taken leave of your senses?” asked Jerjerrod incredulously.

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“He’ll be able to smell it on you—“

“I think the walls are going to close in on me anyway. This could very well be my last chance to have a proper smoke.”

“That seems melodramatic, and I don’t appreciate your pessimism.”

“The rebels are on their way and the Death Star is incomplete, even if it is operational. We’re more prepared than we ever were, which leaves greater room for error and given how the past has rewarded my efforts, I’m not exactly optimistic this time around.”

Motti blew a smoke ring upward toward the ventilation shaft and then offered the grey stick out to Jerjerrod.

“No, thank you.”

“Ah, yes, I’d forgotten you were incorruptible when it comes to the baser habits of men.”

“I happen to still be on duty. You are not.”

Motti patted the bench beside him. “I would smoke on duty if I had anywhere to go that wasn’t brimming with the sort of idiots who can never seem to talk about anything other than objectifying women’s bodies and their latest kills.”

“And by categorizing all men as idiots, every day you succeed in making more and more people dislike you,” said Jerjerrod as he took the invitation to sit.

“Did I ever try terribly hard to get people to like me?” countered Motti. “I know I’m an unlikable upstart, otherwise my father wouldn’t have sold me to the academy.”

“Enrolled you,” Jerjerrod corrected.

“He paid a large sum of money to have the academy take me in before the legal starting age with the assurances that I would never return home and that the academy could do whatever it liked with me whether or not I graduated. He sold me. What would you call it, again?”

“I hate it when you do that,” Jerjerrod groaned, not at all liking to have to take in this unpleasant bit of news just before a briefing. Motti was a private person but he had told his classmates that his father simply grew tired of having to raise both him and his brother and had thought the academy would be a good fit to instill some order in Motti’s life. But to be _sold_ , that was an entirely different origin to Motti’s tale.

“What, tell the truth?”

“I assumed you normally did.”

“I usually do, but it didn’t help me to have the other boys think that my father gave me up as a bad joke, so just imagine what they would have said and done if they’d known that the Motti family’s patriarch hated his son so much that he paid to sell him to the Empire in the hopes that I wouldn’t amount to more than cannon fodder and be killed in combat.”

The starting age for boys was eleven at the Imperial Academy and Motti had been there as an underling for three years before Jerjerrod met him during their first year (Motti had been seen as something of a prodigy and was allowed to start early despite him not yet being of age). That would put him at roughly five or six years old when his father dumped him unlovingly at the academy’s doorstep with a hefty sum. Six years old and Motti had known even then that he was unwanted and that he would be relentlessly bullied by other boys of all ages if they knew why he had been abandoned. A clever boy even at such a young age and yet his father could not see his potential.

“Didn’t your mother try to intervene?” asked Jerjerrod as he tried to rid his mind of the image of that child standing alone with a pack of meager belongings, watching his father climb back into his speeder without a backwards glance. Hatred for this man Jerjerrod had never met burned within him and his heart ached for his friend, but he could not express either emotion. Motti would rebuke it because he didn’t want to be pitied for his poor upbringing; he wanted people to support him when he took out his anger in whatever way he knew how.

“What mother?” asked Motti without humor. “One of those harlots my father brought into the house every other night? My brother and I both were born from unidentified mothers and the only reason my father kept us was because it brightened his image and kept him in good standing with the public.”

Jerjerrod knew Motti came from a wealthy family with a respectable name, but if he was such a hindrance to his father, could the man not have paid for boarding school or some other means to keep him out of sight and mind?

“Did he beat you?”

This was, apparently, the wrong thing to ask, for Motti’s look of casual distaste turned into putrid discontentment. “Are you interrogating me in the hopes of delving into some other tragedies I haven’t yet told you about? No, he didn’t beat me. He couldn’t even be bothered with that and besides, that’s not the sort of man he was. So if by asking me these questions you’re trying to figure me out, Commander, I’ll tell you to go right ahead and sod off.”

“I already have you figured out,” said Jerjerrod patiently. “It’s your father I don’t understand. How could a man of such wealth on one of the most affluent, inhabited planets in the Outer Rim be so heartless as to give up his child in a way that almost certainly would have meant death if you hadn’t been so adaptable?”

“Because he was a selfish bastard with a reputation to uphold and how would that look if he couldn’t control his own unruly son?”

“I don’t believe you were that awful.”

“I wasn’t, I was worse. I made a point of being difficult because I knew it annoyed him and I felt he deserved it. I didn’t care much for my brother but I saw how unkind my father was to him at times and would go out of my way to be a little terror as a form of payback. And I got away with it for a long time because I was smart enough to avoid getting caught. But eventually I did get caught, and when he left me at what he intended to be my graveyard, I made it my mission in life to do well just to spite him, but I didn’t need to try particularly hard. Turns out I was born for the life of an Imperial. Intelligent, malleable—“

“Vain,” Jerjerrod added.

Motti let half of a grin slip out as he nodded in agreement. “I turned out just like him—and don’t look at me like that, you know I did,” he said when Jerjerrod frowned in disapproval at his self-scrutiny. “Just like him, but worse because he only has influence on one planet, but I helped build this station that could obliterate his planet without a moment’s hesitation. I could give the order that would see him executed because I hold more power than he ever did.”

That vengeful fire Jerjerrod saw behind Motti’s eyes was one of a brilliant madman who would make good on his threats if pushed too far and Jerjerrod did not care for it at all.

“I don’t think it would be an efficient use of this station’s power to destroy a planet simply because your father lives there. And I don’t believe you would murder billions of innocent individuals just to end your father and serve your own need for justice.”

“You obviously don’t remember anything about Alderaan, then,” said Motti in a terribly displaced tone of calm. The two fingers that held the grey stick between them were rubbing at his temple as he found memory in a spot on the wall, no doubt seeing an image of the planet in question exploding.

“That wasn’t by your command.”

“It might as well have been. I could have said no when Tarkin told me to open fire. I would have been arrested and the planet would have been destroyed all the same, but I would have had a clear conscience. But I accepted my orders and watched the planet and all its people burn. If that had been Seswanna and my father and brother among the dead and dying, I wouldn’t have cared, as long as they were dead. But it would serve no purpose now because my father’s dead and my brother’s disgraced the family name and disappeared. I’m all that’s left of my name. Isn’t that poetic justice?”

Perhaps this man was the very image of the father he had loathed, but Jerjerrod prided himself in knowing Motti better than any other man alive could claim and he did not believe it when Motti stated no regret for all those who had died on Alderaan. Conan Motti was a selfish man, hardworking, difficult to deal with, even more difficult to like, and infuriating to no end, but he was not a sociopath.

“I think you are projecting your own wrongdoings on yourself to make yourself seem worse than you actually are,” said Jerjerrod, wishing he could remove the stick from Motti’s hand but not feeling entirely confident in doing so at the moment.

“I can’t think of anything good I’ve ever done for anyone else in my entire life, so I suppose that makes me the villain of my own story.”

“I can think of a few things, which means you’re romanticizing your own villainy which is something you shouldn’t even be contemplating right now. And that leads me to a very pressing question: how many hours have you gone without sleep this time, Admiral?”

Blowing smoke out of his nose on the inhale, Motti shrugged. “In truth, I have no idea. It’s pure exhaustion that helps me to sleep at all these days. I just keep going until my eyes won’t stay open anymore and I hope that I’m in my quarters when that happens.”

“Then, don’t you suppose that this one last capsule would be beneficial to take with what’s about to occur in a little over an hour?”

Motti brought the capsule out of his breast pocket and turned it over between his fingers. “I don’t think one is going to make a difference.”

“Not so much of a difference to let anyone know if you’ve taken it, but at least it’s just the one this time. No danger in _accidentally_ taking more.”

Motti reserved a scowl for him and then put out his smoke on the bench. “Best be on your way to report for Admiral Piett’s arrival.”

“Indeed. See that you aren’t late, Admiral.”

“Yes, sir.”

/ /

“Admiral Piett’s shuttle has arrived, sir,” said Lieutenant Kellian. “And Lord Vader requests that the Joint Chiefs convene.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant.”

He had not had to wait for long after leaving Motti’s quarters for Piett’s shuttle to settle in the main docking bay. Piett was prompt where Motti was not, even if he had no control over how quickly his pilot flew the shuttle and so his shuttle’s landing gear touched down just as Jerjerrod took the metal staircase down to meet him. The admiral was unaccompanied, as his presence did not merit a guard of any sort and there was only the exchange of salutes when Jerjerrod approached.

“Admiral,” Jerjerrod greeted.

“Commander,” returned Piett.

Nothing else was said, not when so many eyes could be watching, so many ears attuned to any word, but Jerjerrod could sense the unease in the admiral, the dread of something greater to come. His gait was not as deliberate as usual, crippled by unsteady indecision. Perhaps he, too, sensed the likely explosive response the Sith would have to the rebels’ formation.

They were among some of the last to enter the council chamber, taking their designated seats and waiting for Lord Vader since none of them knew the reasoning for them being there. Babble broke out amongst those seated around them, but Jerjerrod did not listen or participate in any of it. Instead, he compared how differently Admiral Motti and Admiral Piett were dealing with this unexpected turn of events.

Motti never did well at such gatherings, but since his nearly fatal one, he had occupied his nervous hands by bringing along something to fidget with under the table and Vader had mercifully refrained from addressing him at all, though the Sith made a point of striding past and behind Motti more than was necessary to keep him on alert. Even with Jerjerrod providing him with his capsules until they ran out, the Joint Chiefs sessions were the most difficult obstacle for him to overcome and he had been out of capsules for quite a while now. Today, it appeared, he had not taken the one recovered capsule Jerjerrod had given him and as a result, he was nervously drumming his forefinger on the tabletop with his eyes fixed on the center unblinkingly.

Piett was normally a picture of the complete opposite: attentive, engaged, and collected. He did not often speak at these briefings, but when he did, he had grown steadily more secure in his words to spar with the generals who did most of the talking. From the unfortunate captain who was Admiral Ozzel’s reluctant replacement to Fleet Admiral, he had garnered a respectable amount of esteem from his peers and underlings.

But today Piett, too, was visibly on edge, though his restlessness went largely unnoticed by the surrounding Joint Chiefs.

If Jerjerrod could only reach either of them under the table, he would have delivered a swift kick to both of their shins to remind them that a passive face was needed here and that both of them were doing a poor job in displaying one. He wished he could project some of his composure onto them, though he wanted to know where his own stillness came from since by all accounts, he should also be quivering where he sat.

The chamber doors slid open with a jarring _hiss_ and Lord Vader entered in a mood none of them had trouble interpreting. Several stormtroopers followed him in and stood guard on either side of the door which cemented all of their beliefs that the Sith was of a mind to kill today and the troopers would be dragging out his victim’s body.

_Stay calm,_ Jerjerrod told Motti with a single shake of his head as the young admiral made half a motion to run for the door in sheer, bloody panic. He knew how difficult this would be for Motti above all others because Motti alone had already been given his one pass from Vader and knew there would be no second. If anyone were to suffer the Dark Lord’s wrath today, Motti seemed the likely choice.

Coming to the empty space at the northern curve of the table reserved for him to stand and address them all, Vader let his fist fall onto the tabletop. He would appreciate the effect it had in making each of his officers jump slightly in their seats.

“Reconnaissance parties have alerted us to a mass gathering of rebel ships inbound for this very system,” announced the Sith. “As we anticipated, the rebels are planning to launch an attack within days.”

“And we are more than prepared,” said General Noyce, having clearly not learned from previous meetings about when Vader was to be tested and when it was best to keep quiet altogether. “The shield generator is activated and this battle station is prepared for the final phase to test its capabilities of being operational.”

“The rebels have obtained information on how to deactivate the shield generator and infiltrate this station’s inner defenses,” said Vader shortly. “The technical readouts have been copied and transferred, but more importantly, they were stolen with ease due to inside help. Someone provided the rebels with access to the data and then concealed the theft.”

The air was stale and silent as no one dared breathe. 

A traitor. A traitor revealed in form but not in name—not yet. 

“We only know that the data was stolen, not when the transfer took place, though it is safe to assume that it occurred within the last four months after the shield generator was activated,” continued Lord Vader. “And those with access to the data in question sit in this room.”

One of them. One of the nine of them. The men in this chamber were the only ones who knew how to access the battle station’s readouts, as such information was classified to avoid further chance that the rebels might obtain it. Aside from the rebels kidnapping and torturing the information out of one of them, the only explanation was that someone had willingly surrendered the data and not reported it, leading to Vader’s conclusion that the culprit was a rebel sympathizer.

“Are you accusing us of leaking the Death Star schematics to the rebels?” asked General Mallisk furiously.

“I am accusing _one_ of you. He knows who he is,” Lord Vader corrected. “As do I. I am giving him the chance to stand and admit his treachery, lest I have to do it for him.”

Jerjerrod chanced a look at the other eight seated around the table. Looks of fear, of outrage, of confusion and curiosity. Apart from two. They wisely did not meet his eye, but he could see their posture failing as they hoped to sink down into their chairs and hide from the Dark Lord’s mounting unpredictable anger.

They, too, would be remembering the power outage in the Endor shield generator bunker…

_Urging his companions to quiet themselves was not an order he gave because he heard movement in the bunker but because he felt a presence with them, a pull of some sentient being, though he could not say how he felt that presence. A half-moment before he had seen the streak of green light expanding before him, he had thought to reach for his hold-out blaster, but thought better of it when he saw the likeness of the young rebel commander swim into view. He recognized the face from the data obtained on Bespin’s security footage and then sent out to every Imperial officer shortly after. If the Jedi had wanted them dead, he would have cut through them without needing to switch off the power, which told Jerjerrod the rebel wanted the access codes. As they were flooded with light extensions from more rebels, he saw Motti and Piett moving to draw their own concealed blasters._

 _“Hold your fire, do not draw,” he warned, moving in front of the them though he knew his body would not be enough to shield both of them if the rebels opened fire. “I repeat, do **not**_ _draw.”_

_“Already you’re exceeding my expectations, Commander,” said Luke Skywalker. “I almost assumed you would give the command to open fire on us since that seems to be the solution to most of the Empire’s problems, but somehow, I knew you wouldn’t give that order. You knew we were here before I revealed us.”_

_“Instinct,” said Jerjerrod. He had felt a tingling sensation as soon as the power had gone out, an uneasy feeling that there was more at work than he could see, but he was not so deluded as to think he had the foresight or the perception to sense things before they happened. “Might I ask how you managed to get in? This entire bunker is on permanent lockdown except by my command.”_

_“I told the five troopers at the door to let us in and they did,” said the Jedi simply with a wry smile. “The weak-minded are easily manipulated.”_

_“And those troopers somehow forgot that they let a rabble of resistance fighters in, did they?” inquired Piett._

_“I persuaded them to forget us as well.”_

_“There are now twice that number waiting just outside, so how do you propose to escape once you’ve taken what you need from us?” asked Motti._

_“Another power outage sometime tonight will cover that.”_

_Jerjerrod wasn’t at all pleased to know that his men were so simple-minded that they could easily be fooled by a Jedi, but it appeared he would not live to reprimand them for their idiocy as the Jedi took a step forward._

_“I suppose you know what we need from you.”_

_“Something you can’t have,” said Motti. “It would mean our lives if we gave it to you and our lives if we didn’t. Whether Lord Vader kills us or you do, it makes no difference, provided that you be quick about it.”_

_“Besides my lightsaber, you have no weapons trained on you. All light on you right now comes from blasters set to safety and pointed away from you. It’s not our intention to hurt you regardless of whether or not we get what we came for.”_

_“You do realize that makes for very poor negotiations if there is no risk?” said Motti in puzzlement._

_“The risk is yours completely, not ours. If you were to report this incident to Vader, he would have you killed for it even if you claimed that you were ambushed and unarmed. If you say nothing, he will know nothing.”_

_Finding this proposal odd to the point of peaking his curiosity, Jerjerrod took another step forward. “You’ve come to offer something more than just our lives in exchange for what you need.”_

_“You’re very perceptive, Commander, and correct. I’m offering you the one thing you want the most.”_

_Jerjerrod believed Vader was capable of interpreting a man’s emotions and drawing conclusions from that, but he did not believe in any sort of fate telling and even if he did, he did not find it plausible that a Jedi as young and untried as Luke Skywalker would be able to accomplish such a thing. The Force could not possibly tell the Jedi what three Imperials officers’ deepest desires were._

_“Bold of you to assume that any of us have any desires left at all after decades in the Imperial service,” said Motti, unconvinced._

“ _I think all Imperials have a mutual desire to not be killed by Vader, or am I wrong?” asked Skywalker knowingly. “A man who would and has ended lives without cause because he could do so with no one to stand in his way, that is the man you serve. And he follows the man who would order you to destroy a moon with hundreds of your men on it. Those are your masters. The Emperor cares for the millions of people serving him as he does for the millions of people who he has killed or had killed. The lives of you and your friends, your men, your people, mean nothing to him. If you don’t care for all of those who suffer from his tyranny, will you at least care for those who you can see being tortured and killed in front of you?”_

_“The choice to do otherwise was never given to us, not like you,” said Jerjerrod with a trace of regret. He willed the Jedi to understand how they were placed in this situation as boys while Skywalker had been able to choose his path much further along down his own road when he had matured and known which side he preferred to fight for._

_“You are choosing to stay where you are because you are all that stands between the Emperor and Vader and another hundred men dying. Life is precious to you and not just your own. If you could save them, would you?”_

_“I would,” said Jerjerrod instantly. “I would—but I can’t.”_

_“You can,” encouraged the Jedi. “You already did. The moment you saw that it was me who had come for you, you moved in front of your friends. As an intelligent man, you knew it could mean your death to stand between a lightsaber and its target, yet you made that decision to take the first blow. It was instinct, a choice made without thought because it’s the first and what you thought would be the only time you would be able to do so.”_

_Skywalker lowered his saber and then activated the turn-off component._

_“I can help you if you help me. My cause goes beyond freeing the galaxy of the Empire. I have my own destiny I must face in confronting my father, your master.”_

_Though this was indeed news to the three of them, not a one of them made any indication that they found it startling. After all, they had seen events that would normally cause more of a response and had equal indifference to said events. It was second nature to have no visible reaction._

_“Is that not surprising to you?”_

_“Only the notion that Lord Vader managed to produce offspring at all,” said Motti. “He doesn’t seem capable of it.”_

_“He was, and I am the result, but it’s my mission to speak with him on my own terms and bring the goodness I sensed in him to light. A monster he undoubtedly seems to you, but he is still my blood and as the Sith can sense fear, so can the Jedi sense hope.”_

_“He’s a man without pity and mercy,” said Piett. “I fear your mission will be in vain.”_

_“You,” Skywalker pointed at Motti. “You’ve experienced first-hand what my father can do and what the Sith are willing to do to maintain their grip on their soldiers.”_

_Motti glowered at the Jedi. “Your father also delights in reminding me of that.”_

_“I can sense that the Force has been used against you,” Skywalker added somewhat apologetically. “You were the lucky one.”_

_“Quite.”_

_“You will find no such hesitation from the Emperor. He has a punishing grip on my father that roots him in evil and it’s my duty to break it. Vader follows the commands of his master as you follow the commands of yours—out of fear.”_

_Of what little he knew concerning the Force, Jerjerrod did know that it was capable of influencing emotions and—as Skywalker had pointed out—the minds of the less resilient, so he suspected that the Jedi might be using the Force to push Jerjerrod toward a favorable outcome. And yet, Jerjerrod did not feel influenced. His mind was opening to the fact that the rebel commander had just offered him a solution to his unsolvable struggle. How did he prevent another friend from going down the path Captain Needa went? How did he ensure Admiral Piett did not fall to the wayside as his predecessor had? How did he return Admiral Motti to the man he was before Vader had tormented him? The Jedi had an answer, **the** answer. Except…_

_“What assurances do I have that your people wouldn’t execute mine for serving the Emperor and various other war crimes?” he asked. He would not be offering his assistance to anyone unless he had word from the Jedi’s own mouth that—in the rare event that any of them survived the conclusion of the war—those of his men who surrendered would not be harmed._

_“Because we came to you to ask, not demand. This isn’t an intimidation tactic, but a plea for your sake and others. We don’t deal in threats, unlike your master.”_

_“If I choose to help you and it’s discovered what I’ve done—“_

_“By then it will be too late for the Emperor, if I’ve succeeded in making contact with Vader. This is your choice now, Commander, a choice being given to you when you never had one. If you choose to abandon the Empire, then we’ll gladly accept your help but if not, then we’ll leave and know that if we meet again, it will have to be as enemies. Most men act on intuition and don’t give pause to think of the consequences of their actions, but you are here now with no gun to your head, so make your decision for yourself, not because you’re ordered to.”_

_And the Jedi had offered Jerjerrod his hand…_

He swallowed hard, savoring it, knowing this might well be the last time he could ever partake in such a simple act, taking in as much air as lungs allowed. He never anticipated that he would be this still when accepting his death but even as he thought of that looming darkness Admiral Motti had spoken of and the hand that would be sure to find its way to his throat, he could only envision an overcast day of rain and peace in place of the cold monochromatic walls around him. 

He could smell the fresh pine and the rich soil as the creek behind his home filled with rainwater. He saw his father approaching with news that he had been accepted into the Imperial Academy, that he would be part of helping to form and maintain the Galactic Empire. His last night home, his last look at any semblance of normalcy, of living in a world and not a universe, of seeing sky instead of space.

A life of hardship and terror lay ahead of him, one of loneliness and brewing hatred, of despair and vulnerability. And he knew he could not go down that path again.

 _Run_. It was his own mind’s voice and something more, something else, some _one_ else.

Turning from his father, he fled and ran into the woods with no destination in mind, only knowing that he could not accept that letter, that he could not board that transport that would take him to the academy hovering amidst the stars. His feet carried him far, toward a wizened voice of reassurance that he had made the right decision this time. It beckoned to him more strongly the deeper he went until he came to a cliffside that opened up into an abyss. No sign of the bottom, no sight of the opposite side. Nothing ahead of him but the unknown.

_Turn back, or jump,_ the voice said. _Accept what you know, or chance what you do not._

He _knew_ where he would end up if he turned back. He had no idea what lay beyond. And so he jumped.

And in the council chamber, he stood up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I mention that this won't be an especially long story? I don't think I did. I'm playing with the chapter count, but it's definitely not going to exceed 15 chapters, for those of you (if any) who are wondering how long it's going to go for. I just felt that that needed to be stated. Carry on.


	5. What it Takes to Break

**COMMANDER JERJERROD**

It was a strange sensation, as if he was aware of his body but not _of_ it as he felt himself leaving his seat. He faced that emotionless mask and prepared to feel an imperceptible vice-like grip closing around his throat and he thought of a prayer, a plea that the rebellion could still be salvaged, provided that Lord Vader kill him quickly and not go plundering about into the extent of his resilience.

Eight heads turned in his direction but there was no reading from Lord Vader. His unique breathing continued, but he said nothing and did nothing, clearly waiting for Jerjerrod to publicly claim his treachery.

“I provided the Rebel Alliance with the plans,” he said, surprised that his voice did not come out as a squeak but as sturdy and confident as it ever was.

“Did you act alone?” asked Lord Vader.

This was not a question Jerjerrod thought to be asked, nor indeed did he expect to still be alive at this point to be interrogated. He answered, perhaps too quickly.

“I acted alone. No one was aware of my actions. I take full responsibility for what I’ve done and do not regret it, only that I did not act sooner.”

“That remains to be seen.”

It was not Lord Vader who spoke, but an oily, scraggly voice from an antechamber to the left. The hood came first, then the rest of the pitch black robe as the stilted form of Emperor Palpatine entered the room. Two luminous yellow-red eyes watched Jerjerrod unblinkingly as the Emperor considered him, smiling.

They had planned this out most strategically, bringing the Emperor to the incomplete battle station undetected, gathering the Joint Council, having the Emperor wait in the wings for the dramatic reveal. It dissolved any courage Jerjerrod might have had left to nobly confront his demise. Now, he knew only terror as he gazed his first upon his true master.

The other Joint Chiefs dropped to one knee to pay respect but Jerjerrod remained as he had been. There was no longer any point in pretending that he had any inclination to bow to a master he did not recognize.

“We shall see if you come to regret your actions or not, Commander. And we shall discover the extent of your treachery.”

He knew what was about to happen seconds before it did and had no way to prepare himself, but he tried. He forced all thoughts of the rebellion from his mind, burying what remained as deeply as he could and hoping the Emperor would not be able to reach it. Every thought he ever experienced would be laid bare, but he concentrated his entire existence on shielding the images of Conan Motti and Firmus Piett and their involvement from the Emperor’s eyes.

An invisible force shoved him face-first into the table and he threw out his arms to protect his nose from the impact, but no sooner had he collided with the table that he was thrown back into his seat. Then he felt himself slammed against the chamber wall with the breath driven hard from his lungs as a shiver of pain trickled from the base of his skull to his tailbone. It was the pull of the Emperor’s power, the call on the Force which had such a hold on him now and he knew Motti had not exaggerated the panic one felt in the face of this unseen power. It did not occur to Jerjerrod to run, but he did try to stand again. Instead, his feet left the floor and he felt himself levitating at eye level, body locked vertically as the Emperor summoned him, willingly or not. He glided over the floor without ever touching it and came to a halt before the Emperor who raised a hand and with a single, gnarled, ghastly finger that looked more bone than skin, he touched Jerjerrod’s forehead.

Somewhere, he knew he was screaming…

_“Admiral Piett,” Jerjerrod said again when his friend had not answered the first time._

_What initially Jerjerrod thought would be the easier undertaking of the two of them was now looking like the more difficult, as Admiral Piett had not changed expression or offered any word at all since Jerjerrod had agreed to help._

_The admiral looked almost bored by the proceedings but as Jerjerrod had, Piett would be considering every possibility before conceding. He was a wise man, calculating and careful, but he was also more comfortable following than leading, as leading put him in harm’s way. He had never strived for any promotion but had earned one after another thanks to better men failing dismally at their duties. This, however, was not a promotion but a chance to make a decision that would not affect anyone but himself. No one would suffer from his failure, if it came to that._

_“Admiral, I ask the same question of you,” said Commander Skywalker. “I know how much you fear my father. I could sense it when you first laid eyes on me; you feared what repercussions there would be from Vader. I know why you fear him as well and if you would save your friends and your men from the same fate, you have to make the same choice the commander has.”_

_“He would see through me instantly,” said Piett doubtfully. “I have strong resolve to put an end to his oppression, but I have a weak mind that he would pick apart. He knows when he is being lied to as well as when anyone attempts to mask their fear of him—“_

_“You’re not weak-minded, none of you are,” said Skywalker resolutely._

_“And you would know this how?” asked Motti._

_“Because I attempted to manipulate your minds when we first entered and I couldn’t. Your wills are powerful, proving that Vader does not influence you and that the decisions you make from here on out are your own.”_

_Motti did not look convinced in the slightest. “He may be your father, Jedi, but you don’t know him. There is no hiding anything from him. He always knows.”_

_Here, Skywalker had given Jerjerrod a curious glance-over and rebuttaled with, “Does he know about the medication the commander smuggled for you?”_

_Motti was quick to recover. “I think the more important question is: how do **you** know that?”_

_“How, indeed. I don’t claim to know more than the many Jedi who have come before me, nor am I as experienced and disciplined as Vader, but my master taught me to see potential, to seek out what might be instead of what is. I came here to obtain vital information to the rebels’ success, but I didn't expect to run into men with such barefaced hatred for the masters they serve. If I am giving you the means to help destroy that which you hate most and you choose to walk away, then you have no right to grieve for those lives lost in the battles to come, not when you had the opportunity to save them and didn’t take it.”_

_At this point Jerjerrod felt that surely Motti and Piett would agree to aid in the rebellion, but Motti had said those soul-crushing words that made Jerjerrod resent him, if only marginally._

_“I understand your cause, but I cannot support it,” said Motti. “If my fellow officers decide to risk their lives to give you information that may or may not help you win this war, that is their choice and I’ll not stop them. I will say nothing about this encounter, but neither will I do anything to help you. If the Empire falls, it won’t be from my help or hindrance.”_

_“If you do nothing, you still remain in the guilty party, should this meeting be discovered,” Piett reminded him._

_“I made my choice as to which side I belonged when I approved the destruction of Alderaan, Admiral. I was given my chance to restore order and didn’t take it and that’s the only chance the universe has in store for me. I won’t let that sort of decision be entrusted to me again.”_

_“You can’t take credit for the lives lost on Alderaan,” said Skywalker. “You didn’t conceive that order and you can’t claim responsibility for it as the only senior surviving officer of Grand Moff Tarkin’s command. And you can’t let that be what stops you from doing the right thing here and now.”_

_“If it’s my decision, then let it be mine if I think it’s right.”_

_“ **Not**_ _making a decision is the wrong decision, Admiral. And by doing nothing either way, you’re **not** making a decision because it’s the easier thing to do.”_

_“I’ll not stand for you to call me a coward, Jedi,” barked Motti._

_“I’m not calling you a coward. I’m saying that I understand your hesitation. The Empire is all you’ve ever known and to betray it without visible proof that your sacrifice will pay off is a difficult thing to do. It’s far easier to keep your faith in what has always been a constant, never faltering and never changing than to trust in the unknown. But I ask you, would the Emperor offer you a choice to walk away from your duty, or do you intend to die in your master’s service? Is this life one that you want to continue living? If ever you thought about freedom, this is your one chance to take it.”_

_That, apparently, was enough for Piett._

_“You have my support, Commander Skywalker,” he said strongly and never had Jerjerrod heard such confidence in his friend’s voice. It was the realization that he could not watch one more friend’s life so blatantly cast aside that pushed Piett to abandon any faith he had left in his duties to the Empire and Jerjerrod commended his friend for his bravery. He was not a man of strong presence, but perhaps that was to his advantage and attributed to why he was still alive. No one gave a second thought to Firmus Piett because he was not a threat—until pushed too far._

_Motti, on the other hand, was still struggling with his own sense of morality. All he had achieved, all he had become in life would be for nothing if the rebellion demolished the Empire but at what cost were his titles worth keeping by continuing to serve masters who could not care less about his life’s work? His potential had limits and the further he reached to test those limits, the more his mentality suffered for it, the more his body rejected his efforts. His duty was slowly killing him out of fear of the one weapon he could not counter because he could not see it. Skywalker had pointed out Motti’s deepest fear, but did not admonish him for it, only offered him a way to defeat the man who would use it against him._

_And that promise, it seemed, was the deciding factor._

/ /

The Emperor’s presence in Jerjerrod's heart, his mind, his very soul pulled away, leaving him drained and light-headed. He would have crumpled to the floor, if Lord Vader had not been holding him by his lapels as he returned to his body and wits, having failed at hiding Motti and Piett from the Emperor’s gaze.

“More resistance than I thought to encounter, but still an inexperienced mind in attempting to shield vital information,” said the Emperor. “I have the information I sought to find. Admirals Motti and Piett, stand.”

Jerjerrod’s heart plummeted down into the depths of his stomach as he watched terrified resignation reign over Motti and Piett’s faces. Motti wiped the back of his hand over his damp upper lip and came to his feet, arms at his sides. Piett followed half a second later, placing his arms behind himself no doubt to keep them from visibly trembling.

_I’m so sorry_ , Jerjerrod tried to convey through expression alone. They could not have known how hard he had tried to shield them from the Emperor’s eyes and how it had wounded him to do so. After all, he was only a man.

Vader dropped him, for which he was unprepared. He hit his knees hard on the black marble and then crawled to the wall with his head threatening to split open from the assault it had just undergone. Setting his back against it to help him stand, he began to push himself up using only his legs and he saw the Emperor point to the admirals, both of whom flinched in anticipation of an attack.

“You allegiances have changed, have they not?” the Emperor inquired. “Both of you have defected to the rebellion in exchange for promises that pitiful mess of so-called soldiers could not keep? Take responsibility for your poor judgment. Say the words.”

“My allegiance has shifted to the Rebel Alliance, yes,” said Piett in a terrified whisper.

“I serve no one but myself,” said Motti. “Neither Empire nor Alliance.”

“Long have I watched you, Admiral Motti, ever so closely after your failure to die upon the Death Star,” said the Emperor in pitiless and facetious amusement. “Such fear I feel in you. Fear of death, fear of crying out in the darkness with no one to hear you as that hand of fate closes around your throat. It would seem that I misjudged your ambition and callousness when I approved your promotion, mistook them for what they appeared to be instead of what they were: sympathy for the rebels and their cause masked by convincing hate and overconfidence.”

“Strong-willed and not as weak-minded as originally thought. I did not sense this sympathy for the rebels upon our last close encounter,” Lord Vader told his master.

“Perhaps because you loosened it only after you attempted to strangle me,” said Motti spitefully.

Jerjerrod cursed him for his quick wit and sharp tongue, a deadly combination at a time such as this. What sort of fool did Motti have to be to provoke a Sith lord after being called out as a traitor and all but sentenced to death? Did his arrogance and incapacity to lose an argument blind him to the inevitable consequences in store for him?

Without even turning his way, Vader extended his hand in a clenched fist as Motti let out a rapid, terrified, “No,” before his head jerked back violently, his body stiffening upright. He was clawing at his throat, recreating the scene he had told Jerjerrod of in horrific detail.

A scenario Jerjerrod had never thought to imagine he might one day take a part in. 

_“You were wondering if I would have spoken out on your behalf if I had been there.”_

Motti had been disappointed at his answer then, but now he would die knowing that Jerjerrod was as much a selfish bastard as the rest of them who had held their silence to keep their skin. Motti would die knowing that Jerjerrod did not possess the willpower to take on a Sith and betrayal would be the last thing he knew.

Jerjerrod found his voice, bloodied and battered from the strain of his earlier screaming, but he found it and used it. “Leave him!”

Motti’s eyes were bulging in his skull but Jerjerrod could see the recognition there, realization that this time he would not face this alone. He could feel the tiniest inkling of relief emitting from Motti’s form, a glimmer of hope.

“You punished him enough the first time you did this to him, Lord Vader, let him be!”

When Vader showed no signs of relenting, Jerjerrod found that he once again had motor capabilities and ran. Behind Towitz, behind Piett he went as he circled the table to reach Motti. He just had time to take in the sight of Motti hovering a small handful of inches above the floor before he slammed against Motti’s side, knocking him into the table. He threw Motti upon the tabletop in the hopes of relieving some of the pressure but even sprawled out on his back, his legs were still kicking, his hands still tearing gashes into his neck.

“Lord Vader, I beg you to release this man.”

Vader, however, had not so much as moved his helmeted head a fraction toward the man he was slowly killing.

Jerjerrod tried to pull Motti’s hands away from his neck to prevent the man from unintentionally slitting open his own throat but Motti had reached that point where nothing but the grasp around his airways existed and he could not perceive of Jerjerrod’s attempts to help him, however insignificantly.

“Admiral, take your hands away, dammit,” he cursed his friend but Motti was past the point of listening to reason.

_Damn you, Vader, release him_.

Jerjerrod put his own hands around Motti’s throat, creating a barrier through which Motti’s frantic fingers could not claw. He looked frantically for someone to whom he could turn to assist him, and knew the same hopelessness Motti had felt when no one had come to his aid either.

Save for one.

“Help me,” he pleaded as his eyes found Piett.

The admiral appeared to come free of a state of bemusement and knocked over his chair in his haste to come around the table. Once he was alongside Jerjerrod, he seized both of Motti’s hands and pinned them down, but what good it would do, he didn’t know.

Now Vader was watching the two of them in their futile struggle to save their companion. Beside him, the Emperor’s calculating glowing eyes were fixed on them with something akin to amused curiosity. This was nothing to them, this man dying before them was nothing and that cold, indifferent disregard fueled a hatred Jerjerrod had never known.

Motti’s blatant observation had been correct: if the governing force of the Empire cared so little for its own people, its own soldiers, what purpose was served in fighting for a dictator that would not fight for them? It infuriated Jerjerrod to see with his own eyes that his life’s work and purpose meant little more than space dust to a passing cruiser.

_Release him,_ his thoughts said to Vader, knowing the Sith could hear him even if the latter did not acknowledge him. He would no longer plead, but give commands of his own, for the time for bending to another's will was over the second Vader reached out to mark his target.

As if electrocuted, Jerjerrod felt a tremor surge through him and then he was gasping and gnashing his teeth to free himself of a bodiless hand wrapped securely around his throat. But another jolt and he felt the pain as if from a distance, from beyond his body. And the voice crying out in his head for leniency was not his own. He heard the screams that the man before him could not make, magnified in his ears. Motti’s pleas were audible only to him, his pain shared in this moment.

_Release him now._

In his mind, Jerjerrod found that when he brought his hand to his neck, there was a tangible source of power there, as if another hand was present. He pried his fingers underneath it to break its hold.

Motti surged upward on the table just far enough to grab a fistful of the front of Jerjerrod’s tunic and Jerjerrod heard the screams threatening to make his brain implode on itself.

_Help me,_ the man begged.

**_Release him_**.

The authority in his mind’s voice made his ribs vibrate. So clearly and loudly did he hear himself mentally roar the words that he wondered for an amount of time he did not have if any others in the room had heard it.

His hands pushed away at the force that held his throat in its grasp and kept it at bay through sheer willpower alone. Determined, resolute that the dark power would not be allowed entry again, he commanded it with full assertiveness to be gone and then Motti collapsed back onto the table, inhaling rattled, torn breaths.

Jerjerrod felt no disembodied hand at his throat, nor could he feel what he knew to be Motti’s pain anymore. All of it was gone, as was the ringing in his ears.

Piett caught Motti as the latter tried to roll onto his side and nearly fell off the table but even as the admiral made the most pathetic noises of gratefulness for his own salvation, all eyes were once again on Jerjerrod, including those of Vader and the Emperor. Aware of the shaking in his hands that were still fueled from the ordeal, Jerjerrod placed one on Motti’s shoulder to conceal his rage. 

“Curious,” said the Emperor, eyes boring into Jerjerrod’s with an intensity he couldn’t match or keep. “Escort the officers to the detention block.”

The remaining Joint Chiefs cleared the way as the troopers who had followed Vader in now moved forward. Two prodded Piett in the back to make him move toward the door. Two more dragged a still gasping Motti off of the table and carried him between them since he didn’t seem to be in control of anything below the neck at this point. The last four closed in around Jerjerrod, as they obviously felt that he required more security than his companions.

Fate would call the fact that the three of them were still alive a miracle, but Jerjerrod half-wished they had all died in their seats, for he knew what awaited them now. If the Emperor was not going to dispose of them in front of the council, their exit from the universe would be of the most hideously painful sort. He had brought this on them by the limitations of his own mind. If only he had been able to successfully shield them from the Emperor’s eyes, he would be making the journey to the cellblock alone.

It was only after he was led from the chamber that he spotted blood on the front of his uniform and located the source. Both of his nostrils were trickling red. He was not aware of having hit his nose on anything, for he had protected it before the Emperor could break it against the table but something had caused the blood to come forth and now he was left to wonder what.

/ /

The detention block was designed to give no privacy at all and keep the prisoners completely exposed but also secure as opposed to the hidden cells on the previous battle station. Each cell was marked by hashed out beams of electric blue that hummed with energy the closer one stood to them. There was no wall to rest upon, only the floor. They were intended to make their occupants as uncomfortable as possible, keeping them partially awake so as to not accidentally bump into them and lose an appendage. 

Jerjerrod and Piett stepped into their cells and had the beams activated behind them but Motti was tossed onto the floor where he lay still retching and wheezing. To see him in pain and not be able to reach him, Jerjerrod thought that perhaps he had designed this cell block too well. It triggered helplessness as well as loneliness, to be so close and yet so far.

After a time, he heard only labored puffing and finally spoke. “Conan, can you turn and look at me?”

At first, Motti ignored him but then painstakingly slowly, he rolled onto his side. The single light illuminating his cell cast evil-looking shadows over the half of his face still pressed into the floor. Jerjerrod could not understand why Motti was regarding him with something that looked incredibly like animosity as if it were his fault that Motti once again spoke out of turn with Lord Vader. Then, as if in response to the hostility he had not yet verbally received but was preparing for, Jerjerrod thought of all the ways in which he was blameless in this situation.

He had taken sole responsibility in an effort to protect Motti and Piett. He had had his mind probed quite viciously by the Emperor and was in no way any match for the Sith lord. He had been the only one to come to Motti’s aid without hesitation. He had been the one to convince Vader to release Motti. Incidentally, _how_ had he managed to do that? Had the Sith felt some stab of remorse for his actions or perhaps he was moved by Jerjerrod’s fierce protectiveness of Motti when every other officer Vader had killed had been alone and ignored by their fellows? Jerjerrod remembered how the pressure around his neck dissipated and at the same time, how he had felt as if he were experiencing Motti’s pain and not his own but how could he know what it felt like to feel another’s physical pain?

In any case, in every instance, Jerjerrod had been in a position to shield Motti, yet somehow this was still _his_ fault, according to the expression on Motti’s face. It was true repulsion, absolute loathing that he saw on those swollen features. When last Jerjerrod had seen Motti in this position, it had been a distracted, frightened form that emerged from an escape shuttle, though still with bloodshot eyes and exhaustive breathing. Now, it was a being with nothing left within him but detestation.

“If you’ve something to say to me, now would be the time,” Jerjerrod urged, bracing for the worst.

“I…hate…him,” rasped Motti.

This was not the response Jerjerrod had expected and so he had none to give himself. He saw that distant look come over Motti’s face again, the one with the desire to do harm unto another. Motti wanted the Sith lord dead, that much was certain. At cost to his own life, he wanted Vader’s life to end and he wanted to do the deed himself despite it being in all ways impossible. He had an unreachable goal and as a man who needed absolute control over his life, it was infuriating for him to have helped build a battle station that could destroy worlds but he could not kill one man—one Sith.

“You shouldn’t have given him cause to hurt you again,” Jerjerrod scolded. It seemed best to ground Motti in reality while he was still conscious rather than let his delusions of vengeance fill the empty spaces in his brain where oxygen was still absent.

“You want to point fingers at who was the greater fool?” Motti spat, massaging his throat as he propped himself up on one elbow. “You made an idiot of yourself, pleading for my life.”

Time and again Jerjerrod had to remind himself why he bothered with this man at all, and this was one of those times. The years had sucked the humanity and decency out of his friend and left a distant, goal-oriented man in his place. But from his boyhood days up to now, he had always been unable to accept that at any point in his life, he had been helpless. His pride was too great to process that fact.

“And I stand by what I said before: you’re an ungrateful bastard. Just because _you_ refuse to beg for your life does not mean _I_ am above doing such things, but I heard the words from you this time. You were begging me to do something.”

But that wasn’t entirely true, or so Jerjerrod thought. _Had_ he heard Motti beg him, or had he only imagined it? He had heard screaming despite knowing that Motti could make no such sound with his throat blocked. But how had he even heard that? Where had the screaming come from? How could he hear Motti’s voice inside his head but not see his lips move?

He was beginning to doubt everything that he thought had occurred from the moment Vader began throttling Motti to when the Sith had stopped. The finer details were hazy to begin with but now they were altogether jumbled in Jerjerrod’s head and he didn’t trust that what he had seen, heard, and felt had been real but what was worse, he didn’t know _why_ he should second guess any of this. He was under no influence of any hallucinogen or substance that might cause his memories to blend together and was completely healthy in every sense of the word. The only possible explanation was that the Emperor had damaged the sensors in his brain responsible for correctly relaying information while the Sith had been digging around in there for signs of more traitors.

“I didn’t hear anything,” said Piett quietly from the cell behind Motti. “I never heard a word. He couldn’t make any noise apart from the gagging.”

With Jerjerrod’s point of view unreliable for reasons unknown and Motti’s unreliable due to his stubbornness, Piett’s was the only one Jerjerrd trusted at the moment. The man had an impeccable memory, even if he had been originally stunned when Jerjerrod called for his help. If he had not heard Motti, perhaps Jerjerrod had imagined it. And yet it had sounded so _real_ …the pain had _felt_ so real…

“It doesn’t matter what either of you think you heard,” said Motti dismissively. “Both of you are equal to blame in this as me and you,” Motti turned back around to Jerjerrod, “were just as insubordinate, if not more so, but it was me Vader chose to torture. I hate him. I fucking hate him.”

Jerjerrod decided it was best not to point out that the Emperor’s venture into his mind had been painful as well, for the Emperor had not intended to kill him as Vader had with Motti. Vader singling Motti out was a deliberate attempt to goad Motti on and it had worked, but it had also shown that the Sith lord would take these ramifications for Motti’s betrayal to the end and make Motti’s exit from the universe an extremely painful one.

Motti knew this, but would not let his fear show just yet. First would come the anger, then the defiance, then at the last possible second, he would dissolve into unreserved panic. Jerjerrod and Piett were treated to the anger segment of his slow descent into terror as Motti finally sat up cross-legged and pulled at several tufts of hair until it looked like a few parted company with his scalp. No doubt it was meant to keep his wits about him, but it was doing Jerjerrod no good to watch.

He stepped as close as he dared to the electric barrier so Motti could see his face and his regret. “I am so sorry I was not able to stop him.”

Motti ceased tearing his hair out and instead smoothed it back into place, peering out from between his fingers at Jerjerrod with uncertainty. Jerjerrod’s words and their sincerity had made Motti uncomfortable, but then again, any semblance of dedication had that effect on him. Motti simply did not do well with others watching out for him or claiming to do so. 

“It’s not your responsibility to protect me from my own actions,” he said indignantly, continuing with that strange expression as if he was unsure of what to make of Jerjerrod. “My decisions are my own.”

Jerjerrod considered him, considered that in many ways, he was right: Conan Motti’s fate was no concern of his, but a resonating source of warmth within him fed him words as if it had been his plan all along to say them aloud, as if he had mulled over them and contemplated them for years. When he spoke them, they carried truth that he could not have achieved alone and the tonal maturity of a man several times his age.

“It has always been my responsibility. _You_ have always been my responsibility.”

Was that not so? Had Jerjerrod not made friends with Motti during his first year even though Motti was not yet of an age to begin schooling because the boy had been so forlorn? Had he not decided that he would watch out for this younger boy and had he not fulfilled that dedication to this day to the best of his ability? And to know now that Motti had been forsaken by his own father, it made Jerjerrod’s commitment to Motti all the more imperative and meaningful. If no one else would keep this man from his own destruction, it would fall to Jerjerrod and he would gladly accept the task as his.

He had made that known today to his former masters, his enemies. In choosing Motti’s life at risk of his own, he had let the Sith know what he was willing to die for and what he surely would die for. They now knew how they could break him.


	6. The Presence

**ADMIRAL PIETT**

There were several tears in the skin along Motti’s neck. He had opened his high-sitting collar to grasp at his throat once Vader began the assault and as a result, he now had bloody streaks soaking through his uniform. Jerjerrod’s hands bore the same marks, for though he had worn his standard issue gloves, Motti had broken through the material as well, so great was his need to claw the hold of the Force away from his throat. Though the cuts on both men were not life threatening, it was a difficult thing to have to watch them use what little material that was available to them to stem the blood flow.

Their injuries, however, were attended by a meddroid that was sent to the detention block to ensure that they did not die or hurt themselves further in their cells. They were to be in pristine condition for their execution. Jerjerrod’s hands were given less treatment than Motti’s neck, as there were far fewer marks. A salve was applied and the cuts closed and scabbed over, but the salve smoked when it made contact with the skin and Motti swore at the meddroid as his neck nearly appeared to go up in flames during the healing process.

This small amount of care had an invigorating effect on them for all of a few seconds before they descended once again into the silence that had followed Jerjerrod’s moving, yet unpredictable statement of claiming Motti as his own responsibility.

Motti had had no answer to give, which was a rare thing for a man that enjoyed hearing sarcasm drip from his own voice. As a boy who could not be touched by such trivial things as human emotions, he had struggled as an adult who had no outlet and no way to understand how he should be reacting to such an expression of commitment. He was severely underdeveloped, as were they all, but as luck would have it, he suffered more from it.

Piett, however, found Jerjerrod’s proclamation to be quite endearing and the very thing Motti needed to hear just now when their situation was at its most bleak. It was the right thing to do, to offer a friend unwavering support just hours, maybe even minutes before death. And the commander was in a position to give that support now that they had been exposed as traitors; he had nothing to fear. Even if Motti could not fully comprehend what was given to him, it might just help him through what were sure to be agonizing final moments.

Ever the alarmist with an outlook of doom, Motti ventured after some time, “How do you suppose they’ll kill us?”

“I didn’t expect to still be alive to think about it,” answered Jerjerrod. “I thought to die in my seat. They’ve shamed us in front of the council but they may want to make this betrayal public as a way to end the war if they defeat the rebels. But more like as not, they won’t want to waste time and will execute us privately.”

“That doesn’t sound quite so bad,” said Piett half-heartedly. It was more for Motti’s sake that he tried to remain optimistic, for he knew the Emperor would not be lenient with them. Their deaths would be torturous and a quick look at Jerjerrod confirmed what he suspected.

“I should think strangulation will be in there somewhere,” Jerjerrod told Motti with his face in his hands. “It’s the death you fear most, so that’s what they’ll try to do to you.”

“Good, I hate being surprised,” said Motti, though his already pallid face had paled even further.

“Try?” asked Piett, picking up the clue that Motti had missed.

“If I’m allowed my say, I might be able to spare him that fate,” said Jerjerrod determinedly. “I don’t like his mind’s chances if he has to go through that a third time.”

A third time. That stood to reason that there were two prior instances and not just the one Piett had recently witnessed. This was a repeat experience for Motti, something he feared above all else, something that had wounded him far beyond the actual event. He was terrified of Vader and had had to deal with the Sith constantly for years, which weighed on him and wore him down and he had come to breaking point, but Jerjerrod had provided him with an escape in the form of medication. And this was why Motti refused to admit to any of it when Piett confronted him in the bunker. He was ashamed.

As if the Force was a shameful thing to fear. On the contrary, Piett would have considered Motti an idiot if he didn’t show the respectable amount of caution and trepidation that he had. But he felt the greater fool for not seeing this before, for not attempting harder to find out why his friend was in such visible turmoil.

“I didn’t know,” he told Motti almost apologetically. “I had no idea that Lord Vader had…that he had done that to you before.”

“You didn’t piece it together when the Jedi pointed out that I’d already had my share of the Force used against me?” asked Motti skeptically.

“In truth, no, I had my mind on more pressing matters at the time.”

“And you still didn’t figure it out when I confronted Vader about it?”

Piett most certainly hadn’t noticed then. His mind had gone blank, his ears deaf to any sound but Motti’s choking. Until Jerjerrod had called to him personally, he had not heard anything, but he didn’t want to admit to Motti that his own fear had paralyzed him.

“You know now,” said Motti with an uncompromising sneer. “Is that enough to sate your curiosity?”

“I wouldn’t call my concern for you curiosity. I wanted to know, not for the sake of knowing, but to help.”

“It wasn’t your business to know and now that you do, it still isn’t.”

“Why, because it garners sympathy for you and you can’t stand it?”

“Because I don’t know you as I once did and I don’t trust you.”

What a difficult, difficult man Conan Motti was. And a barefaced liar. His defense mechanisms involved wounding the offending party and pouring salt into the open wound. He had learned too young to distrust his fellow man and those few who had the honor of gaining that trust had to tread carefully, for it could be shattered in an instant. Apparently absence was a good enough reason to distrust a man he had grown up with, though that was no fault of Piett’s.

When did he ever have an opportunity to speak to Motti alone about what ailed him? His visits to the Death Star were sanctioned only for the purpose of discussing war matters and all other forms of interaction were prohibited except by order of Lord Vader. The incident in the Endor bunker was the only chance he had to ask Motti about his general health and Motti had rebuked him then for the same reason. It was unfair.

“I don’t think for one second that you believe what you just told me. There are two people in the universe who can claim to know you: one is me and the other is in the cell on your left. I know the sort of man you are and how infuriatingly willful you can be, but you know me just as well and know that I would never betray your trust. I knew you were medicating, though I didn’t know the reason why and I never said another word about it. Is that not reason enough to trust me?”

“Having you stand there when Vader murdered Lorth is reason enough not to,” spat Motti.

“Take back your words, Conan,” said Jerjerrod in the stern tone his rank commanded. “We’re all about to die and I’ll not listen to you berate and accuse your fellow officer for doing nothing against a Sith lord then when he came to your rescue not even an hour ago. We all deal with our judgment day differently, but not in this malicious manner.”

Piett was not a man often wounded by any words said to or about him and he knew Motti’s words were spewing out uncensored as a precursor to the first onset of panic, but he could not pretend that the words had rebounded off of him this time. They had not addressed Captain Needa’s death outside of those hologram reports but for Motti to call him a coward for not doing something, it was more than he could stand and something he could not hold his peace about.

“What would you have had me do?” he asked Motti resentfully. “I told Lorth to return to his command aboard the _Avenger_ , but he insisted on speaking to Lord Vader himself. I warned him against it, I all but begged him not to proceed, but he did anyway. And even if he hadn’t come, Lord Vader would have had him executed all the same. I stood there and did nothing because I had already done everything I could and I am a human without the means to confront a more powerful being. I said nothing because not all of us have the sharp tongues and half wits you do to challenge a Sith lord.”

Jerjerrod’s disappointed sigh resonated before anything else that Piett had allowed himself to be baited by Motti’s meaningless slur instead of walking away or holding his tongue as he was renowned for. But Piett had firm standing on level ground with this younger admiral, this man who had never properly been taught his place by his friends and if Jerjerrod wouldn’t, Piett certainly would.

“I make no apology for any of my actions, but I will not stand to while away my last hours listening to you hurtle offense for the sake of your pride. If you can’t accept what has been done at great risk for you, you’re undeserving of it. You were always a disagreeable boy and an insufferable man, but this—this cruelty you feel the need to resort to now—will not be tolerated.”

“As if you’re in a position to tell me otherwise—“

“I _am_ telling you now, you self-centered, egotistical bastard. We dealt with you and all your arrogance because we pitied the miserably lonely little boy you were but we held our tongues too often to give you a good, stern talking to about how your behavior was undesirable. We believed you needed friendship but what you needed was someone to take a switch to your rear end and beat some decency into you. That was our fault for letting you carry on as you did and still do, but how dare you turn that ugliness on me? Whether or not it has escaped your notice, you are as human as the rest of us and though the basic human kindnesses were discouraged during our time at the academy, they still remain a natural reaction. Tiaan’s and my duty to you is nothing more than basic human kindness and we don’t deserve your denigration for it. If you’re going to be unappreciative, be so in silence before you tarnish the last good memories we have of you. The last thing I want is to go to my grave hating you.”

It was a hard thing to have to say, a harder thing for the man in question to swallow.

Piett prided himself in holding on to the respect his friends had for him years past its expiration date once they all were scattered across the galaxy, as good as strangers to one another. He had no grand presence as Veers did, nor the imposing voice that could command a battalion as Jerjerrod had. He was not known for his brilliance like Motti or his constant attempts to better himself like Needa. Yet, he was respected by all of them for his attentiveness, willingness to listen and to help, and his resolve. 

There had always been underlying hate for the universe in Motti, but Piett never thought to be on the receiving end of it. The boy Piett and the others had accepted into their group had taken to him instantly, eager to know something other than that hate. That boy who would grow up to be the man scowling at him now had never been so belligerent before. Once, Piett had been taller than Motti, perhaps for half a year, but then maturity came for Motti and they all left Piett half a foot behind. Loss of height also, unfortunately, meant loss of status and to a certain extent—respect. He was one of the shortest initiates but Motti still held him in higher regard than men twice his size. Only the first encounter with Vader had shaken that trust and stamped on it to the point of dissolving it completely—until now.

He could see that his words had resonated with the younger man which was the very best he could hope for, but he was ashamed that he had to resort to such means to put Motti in his place. It gave him no pleasure in admonishing Motti, but if his one good deed would be to bring some humility to the man, he would take it.

“I’ve never understood why you feel the need to hurt us to hide your own insecurities, Conan,” said Jerjerrod and Piett did not mistake the tone of sibling-like discontent, the sound of a brother scolding another. “We’ve never judged you for them despite knowing them all along.”

Motti stood up as a defense mechanism to make himself taller than his companions and not as susceptible to their accusations. As tall all he appeared to be, however, he was still the youngest, the most inexperienced, the most naïve, and the most vulnerable. In so many ways, he was far ahead of them all, but in many more, he was far, far behind.

“Then I suppose this is a conversation being had about twenty years too late,” said Motti, and it sounded more like a surrender than an agreement or even an apology. It would be a challenging thing to face for anyone, having your own faults thrown back in your face when it was much too late to make changes.

“I wouldn’t call it too late if you can hold your head high and support your friends instead of degrading them when you walk to your death,” Jerjerrod countered.

Piett would not go calmly to his death. He would be afraid, he would tremble, and he feared most of all that he might soil himself when he saw death coming for him. The best way to die would be as his friend Captain Needa had: resigned, but still and silent. Needa had seen his death closing in on him but didn’t run, didn’t scream, and didn’t falter. It was the most honorable sort of death, and Piett knew he could not measure up to such a thing. He might squirm, or beg, or do something wildly unbecoming but he could not say for sure what he would do.

He knew fear before, but it encompassed him now, drowning him in dread and watching him sink into nothing as he had always been.

/ /

**COMMANDER JERJERROD**

None of them tried to flee or resist when the troopers came to bring them before the Emperor, for which Jerjerrod was immensely proud. He knew that could very well change once they could actually see death incarnate coming for them, but he had known men to claw, bite, and scream their way from their cells to their executions and the admirals participated in no such foolishness. They left their cells on their feet and kept an even pace with their trooper escort across the entire station to where the Emperor’s chamber overlooked Endor.

Up the lift they went and though it was quite crowded with the three of them and their five guards, they kept their composure. Even with Motti’s shoulder squished in to his chest, Jerjerrod was surprised to feel how still the admiral was now that they were just minutes, perhaps seconds away from the end of it all.

The half-circular door slid open to allow them entry to the chamber and Jerjerrod stepped out first to see that two pillars had been erected before the Emperor’s throne. Only two.

Without orders to do so, the troopers dragged Motti and Piett to the pillars, stretching their arms backward to secure their wrists behind them. They didn’t resist, but panic was beginning to set in as the layout of the scene before them processed. It looked to be that they would face a firing squad.

Jerjerrod’s restrains had not been removed, but the troopers backed away from him and bowed out of the chamber, leaving only the Imperial Guards to protect the Emperor (not that the needed protecting). He knew Motti and Piett would take their reading from him and that it was imperative now more than ever to not unravel and keep his composure.

The revolving throne positioned perfectly to survey the forest moon had its back to him but from the other side, he heard his name.

“Tiaan Jerjerrod, come to me,” bade the Emperor.

What a long walk it was, covering those few meters between himself and the lord of all the Sith. He was uncomfortably aware of how loudly his heartbeat must sound to this being that could sense everything tenfold. He had tunnel vision as he approached, dreading what would happen when he reached his destination and he reached it all too soon.

“You have turned out to be a most interesting specimen in the millions of souls in servitude to the Empire, Commander. Not remotely remarkable, if intelligent and hardworking. Just another man performing his duties, though, grudgingly it would seem. And when, I wonder, did this desire to forfeit your loyalty to your master arise?”

When? When did he first feel anything other than loyalty to the Empire? It might have occurred to him that he had made a mistake in the choosing of his career when he first laid eyes on the Sith lord who granted him his promotion to commander and chief architect of the second Death Star. It certainly gave him unease and grief to still be in the Empire’s service when Admiral Piett reported Captain Needa’s murder. The turning point for him had been when he had been exposed to the bruising on Motti’s neck from an outside force that never even touched him. It had been the lack of motive for Motti’s punishment, the heartless delivery of it that had propelled Jerjerrod onto his current path. Such _anger_ he had felt then, as he felt now.

“I see,” said the Emperor. “Your decisions were influenced by the poor fortune of those around you.”

“Poor fortune that they were killed and tortured for lesser crimes than the one I committed to end up here?” asked Jerjerrod.

“Indeed. They were responsible for their own mistakes while you made none worthy of discipline and yet it was for them that you thought your destiny would be better served if you allied yourself with the rebels. This outcome I did not foresee.”

“Then you must be blind to use the influence of your powers on weaker beings and not expect some resistance.” He felt bold saying such a thing—too bold, but somehow he knew that nothing that came from his mouth would be his undoing. He could say whatever he wished, for the Emperor had already chosen his manner of demise.

The throne revolved around and Jerjerrod flinched to once again be under the gaze of those penetrating eyes, eyes that were focused on him with hunger and expectancy.

Emperor Palpatine looked Jerjerrod up and down in close inspection and seemed pleased with his findings. “For as long as there is a governing power in any universe, there will be those who oppose it, even from within. I can see a man’s desires as easily as you can read your orders on your viewscreen and I have known for many years that there would be traitors, defectors, and cowards in my own ranks. I knew resistance would come in many forms from those who felt the most helpless. But I never would have surmised that the Force would reside so strongly within an Imperial officer, yet here you are, and there it is.” He pointed at Jerjerrod’s chest.

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Jerjerrod, not needing to find a plausible lie, as he truly did not know to what the Emperor was referring.

“Did you not wonder during all those hours spent in your cell, why Lord Vader broke his hold on your friend? Did you think it was due to my apprentice’s own will, or yours? You spoke to the Force and willed it to aid you, even if you did not understand or sense its presence. It has remained dormant within you for many, many years, but in that moment when your need was greatest and when your hate was at its most potent, the dark side beckoned to you, and like a beggar, you accepted it, thinking _you_ were in control of it.”

The Force, the ultimate power that Skywalker had briefly explained to him and Lord Vader had demonstrated to him on multiple occasions. It resided within him, a man of nearly four decades serving the greatest evil in the universe. A mere man gifted with the ability to do with others as he willed, just as Vader had.

“That’s not possible,” he protested. “I’ve served the Empire nearly my entire life and never felt more than any man does. I understand that the Jedi were found as youths and trained from childhood and yet I have lived some thirty-odd years with no inkling of any higher power residing within me.”

This was a power he did not want. His men, his friends, they all feared the Force and to be associated with that fear, it was too much to fathom. He had never been feared and now was not the time he wanted to start.

“The Force inhabits us all, but only few are so fortunate to be able to feel it and use it. It reveals itself in mysterious ways and not always straight away. It came to you, feeding off of your hate, for the dark side draws on such emotions, but it dwelled within you long before that moment in the council chamber. It has been with you for some time, as it is how young Skywalker managed to locate you on the forest moon, is it not, boy?”

So focused on the Emperor he had been that Jerjerrod did not see Commander Skywalker in bindings off to the right, guarded by Lord Vader who held Skywalker’s lightsaber at his belt. The young Jedi had come to confront his father and failed and was now in no position to help Jerjerrod, the rebels, or himself. Who, then, was leading the attack on the bunker on Endor? Who was acting general of the rebel fleet?

“I felt the presence of the Force within you when you landed,” admitted Skywalker tonelessly as he met Jerjerrod’s eye. “That alone was why I decided to trust you.”

Jerjerrod could not feel indignation toward the Jedi at this moment for not telling him. He didn’t give himself enough credit to think he would have reacted favorably in the bunker if Skywalker had told him then, either.

“You have been able to sense those things around you which are imperceptible to others,” said the Emperor. “You have allowed the Force to work through you without realizing how you knew what you knew. Educated guesses, advanced sense of hearing, voices that never spoke aloud, these are all workings of the Force that came alive within you when you allowed yourself to feel the pain and suffering of others. It fuels you, this pain. Hearing its echoes in your friends has driven vengeance into your heart and created lodging for the dark side of the Force. Hear it now. Reach out and hear it, _feel_ it.”

At this particular moment, he did _not_ want to feel what it was that brought him to this enlightenment. He didn’t want to know why the Force had decided to manifest within him and wanted even less to accept that he was chosen among billions because he had bloodlust in his heart. But even as he tried to block out what he knew was coming, his heart swelled with the hurt experienced by the two men tied to the posts behind him.

_A little boy, his stomach swollen with hunger, crying for his mother to provide anything. The same boy climbing with the last of his strength into an open hatch of a supply shuttle and feeling such emptiness as he looked his last upon his home. The boy now a man boarding the ramp to a Star Destroyer’s maiden voyage and terrified of what awaited him. The man seeing the smoldering remains of an AT-AT Walker on a world of ice and knowing his friend had been aboard. The man shaking as he lifted his friend’s body to dump down the garbage chute. The man hating himself for being so fearful when all he wanted was the strength, the courage to act._

He saw it all in an instant though it felt like it had taken a lifetime to process as the Force fed him every swelling emotion. Then, he was once again in the mind of another.

_Another boy, seeing his father hand over a substantial sum of money to an instructor and then without a backwards glance, his father climbed into a land speeder and churned up dust in his wake. The boy standing with a sack of belongings in hand and hatred in his heart but also inconsolable sadness now that he understood he had never been wanted by the man who had sired him. The boy being rejected time and again by the other lads seated about the cantina because he was too young to fraternize. The boy watching his friends cross into the sea of graduates one by one, leaving him behind. The boy saying goodbye to the last of his friends, for they were bound for separate fates. The boy now aged into a fine young man being reprimanded for his eagerness by an elder with severe cheekbone structure. The man glaring at another dressed all in black, hating the other for the pain now residing in his throat. The man turning away as an entire world burst into boundless energy before him. The man running, always running, from what would become his greatest failure. The man laying abed with his knees curled to his chest, biting down on his knuckle and wanting so desperately to weep._

“Their pain has made you strong.” The Emperor’s throaty rasp brought Jerjerrod back now with his insides pounding. “It wasn’t from a sense to do good that you obtained your power. You felt it in a moment of fury. I could feel it as I watched you struggle to release Lord Vader’s hold on Admiral Motti. I could feel the hate surging through you, aided by the dark side of the Force Even now, knowing their past sufferings, you feel nothing but hate for those who hurt your friends.”

He felt sullied. Both light and darkness existed in the Force, but to hear the Emperor tell it, it was the darkness that had chosen him and that thought made him want to retch. Even if he did have some sensitivity to this mystical energy, Jerjerrod hardly believed that it would have been hatred and evil that had allowed him to manipulate the power—or did the power manipulate him? His intentions had only ever been to protect, had they not? To create a barrier between Motti’s neck and Vader’s grasp? To be an impenetrable wall between Piett and Vader? Were those intentions not noble?

“Don’t fool yourself into believing your actions were for the greater good or the good of others, Commander. It has all been for your own benefit. You take pride in being the one who protects your friends and to see that your efforts have aided them, it evokes such power within you. This raw power was an obstacle that Lord Vader was unprepared to meet, and that is why he withdrew, why Admiral Motti stands alive—for the moment—behind you rather than dead in the council chamber.”

Try as he might to deny it, with every word the Emperor spoke, the stronger this living, breathing pulse within him grew. It was not a part of his body, yet it strangely felt as if it belonged there. It had taken up permanent residence within him, here to stay whether he wanted it to or not. And that power was what the Emperor was after.

“There is much I could teach you. You have not yet begun to realize how powerful you could become. Under my tutelage, you could achieve such greatness with nothing to fear. Embracing the dark side demolishes any sense of fear that is possible to exist in any living being. Serve me, and embrace your potential.”

It became strikingly clear that the reason he was not yet dead was because the Emperor sought to use him to achieve some ghastly means to an end. With such young, unrestrained power at his disposal, the Emperor’s reach could extend further than it already had, enslaving every planet, moon, and system in existence. The Emperor wanted him and Commander Skywalker. With the combination of Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, and Tiaan Jerjerrod, there would be no hope for survival for any resistance. Everything and everyone would be at their disposal, bowing to their will.

“Serve me, and your life will be spared,” the Emperor said again when Jerjerrod had remained quiet for too long. “Your treachery will be forgiven, as the Force can easily manipulate the mind if untrained and cause one to do unwise things. Swear your allegiance to me once again, kneel before me and acknowledge me as your master, and you will live past this glorious day of victory for my Empire. Pledge yourself to be mine, give me your life, and I will give you everything, Tiaan Jerjerrod.”

The easy answer should have been to say no and then feel nothing at all, for he knew for certain that the Emperor would strike him dead the moment he refused, but to agree would be a far, far worse thing. He would agree to emerge from this day as a monstrosity fashioned by the dark side of the Force, turn on the men who trusted him to protect them, become the man all men feared and hated. Searching for an answer, he looked back at his friends bound to the posts behind him.

It wounded him to feel their confusion at this revelation that he had the makings of a Sith. He sensed a microscopic amount of betrayal, though he knew it was misplaced. And fear. They were frightened of him and what he might allow himself to become. Already, he was losing them to this darkness, and through no fault of his own. By simply _being_ , he was a stranger to them now, and that was a fate he had not anticipated for himself. He could not go to his death knowing that the men he cared for most feared him as much as they had ever feared the Sith.

Facing the Emperor, he tensed his body in preparation for the death blow and said, “When I renounced the Empire in front of the council, I believe you heard my answer.”


	7. The Darkness Within

**ADMIRAL MOTTI**

Though he knew very little of the Sith besides their penchant for torture, Motti did not figure that they would resort to cruel jokes as a way to play with their food before they destroyed it. Emperor Palpatine’s announcement to Jerjerrod that the latter belonged to their ancient race of Sith and Jedi seemed a feeble joke to Motti until he pieced together the unusual circumstances that occurred for him while in Jerjerrod’s company.

Those instances where Jerjerrod seemed to guess Motti’s questions or responses before he gave them, those times when he had heard Jerjerrod’s voice in his mind to calm him when in Vader’s presence, those occurrences when he had seen something darker and deeper lurking behind those brilliant blue eyes. It was the Force, stirring and awakening within the commander. It was his true lineage as a Jedi or a Sith coming into being—and it was terrifying.

It had been Jerjerrod’s own will that broke Vader’s contact in that spiritual realm with Motti’s throat, but the ability to stop the Sith came because of fury, not determination to do good. Jerjerrod was human, but something more as well, and what made him more also made him estranged to Motti. This man he thought he knew was now of the same species as that man whom he loathed.

He could achieve anything now, with the Force as his ally. He had no need to fear the Emperor or Vader when that mystical energy would now work for him as well. The Emperor had given him a golden opportunity to seize that power.

And he didn’t take it. Tiaan Jerjerrod never desired power. As far as Motti had seen, he _had_ no desires; he simply existed. That, however, was about to change.

A shadow fell over the Emperor’s already hooded brow as Jerjerrod declined his one chance at deliverance. His own life promised to him on a silver platter, and he knocked that platter over, stamped on it, and spat on it. Motti knew _he_ would not have been so bold and brave and utterly stupid. If that chance had been offered to him, he would have taken it in an instant.

Wouldn’t he? Would he leap at the chance to save himself if it meant sacrificing the last two men he could call friend? Was he as selfish and conceited as they had accused him of being? He would never know.

Jerjerrod refused the Emperor’s proposal and the Sith raised a finger almost lazily toward the red-cloaked Imperial Guards who flanked the elevator door. They lowered their spears into attack position and began to stalk forward to where Motti and Piett stood bound to their pillars.

Their hour of reckoning had come much quicker than Motti would have thought. If Lord Vader was any indication of how his master dealt with traitors and failures, Motti expected to personally be cut down by either one of the Sith in the most excruciating manner possible, but he almost had a mind to feel insulted that his death would be at the tip of an Imperial Guard’s staff. The feeling did not last long, however, as he saw them ascend the steps to the throne platform. He tried to think of something defiant to say last minute, but his mind was blank. His eyes found Jerjerrod who had moved in unison with the soon-to-be executioners.

Throwing his hand forward in protest, Jerjerrod was unprepared for what happened next, as were the rest of them. Both guards were thrown away from their targets, landing in a pile of tangled red robes several meters back from where they had started. Unharmed, but startled nonetheless, they leaped to their feet in preparation to charge Jerjerrod, but the Emperor called them off with a dismissive wave.

“Do you not see your potential?” he asked Jerjerrod who was staring at the hand that had done the deed with bewilderment and also bitter repugnance. “At the mere hint of harm coming to yourself or those closest to you, the Force surges through you whether you will it to or not.”

Motti did not appreciate being used as bait to extract Jerjerrod’s newfound powers from within. He had made his peace with his death and if it was going to come, he wanted it to come for certain, not half-heartedly and not to get a reaction from Jerjerrod. There were only so many near-death experiences his heart could take.

“Your instincts react without your permission when threatened. The dark side feeds on you and works through you as a result of your hatred. Use that power to your advantage.”

“If you give in to that power, everything you hoped to achieve in siding with us will have been for nothing,” called Skywalker. “You had a purpose long before I met you and you only agreed to help us if we could guarantee that we would see that purpose fulfilled. It was that intent that brought your powers to you.”

“As your desire to find the good in your father brought yours to you,” replied the Emperor. “Not for his sake, but to prove that you are a Jedi, that you are strong enough to manipulate the mind of a Sith. Your purpose is no purer than the commander’s.”

“You’re determined to find fault where there is none,” Skywalker shot back. “It was the light that brought me to this man. His intentions were as noble as they come. If darkness existed, it existed in the souls of the two men behind him and his objective was to rid them of that. You can’t corrupt him and neither can you corrupt me.”

“One of the first lessons you will learn, my young apprentice, is that all beings are corruptible and it is easier done than you would think, with little more than a nudge in the right direction.”

The Emperor left his throne, his cloak slithering across the floor and giving him the appearance of some inhuman being closing in on its prey. His stilted form was carved by someone who only had the vaguest idea of what a human looked like, so it only made sense that he did not move as a human. He beckoned for Lord Vader to follow in his wake and then approached Jerjerrod who never even took an unsteady step back.

Motti envied that bravery, among other traits the commander possessed.

“Come.” The Emperor motioned for Jerjerrod to walk with him to the pillars and stand obediently aside while the Sith considered the admirals.

“Dignified, though your commander’s intentions might have begun, they dissolved into something more sinister. But I am left wondering, if a man with such reckless gallantry could abandon his duty for what he believed was a noble cause, what pathetic excuses do the two of you have? Neither of you are leaders, but followers, unable to accomplish the tasks of greater men without someone first showing you the way. What was it that could have convinced you to betray your masters?”

Vader approached Piett first and the admiral was positively dwarfed by the Sith, as he had been by nearly everyone in his life, but now he might as well have been a child facing a rancor. Motti knew an irresistible urge to say something and direct Vader’s attention away, for seeing Piett stand so meekly before the dark lord appealed to Motti’s own protective urges—urges he did not know he possessed until this moment.

“If anyone is to blame for why he defected, it’s you,” said Motti and he could hear the inward groan Jerjerrod released at his statement. “You discarded his men and his superiors in front of him as if they were nothing.”

“I would hear _him_ tell me that,” said Vader.

Any courage Piett might have had failed him as he struggled to swallow, to say anything at all in his own defense. 

_Say something_ , Motti prayed. Vader took silence for weakness and would find Piett’s lack of response as the final insult from the man who had briefly been Fleet Admiral. To hear no rebuttal from Piett at all would mean that Vader had made a mistake in choosing his leaders and Vader would not stand to be made a fool of.

“I sense sorrow in you, Admiral Piett,” said the Emperor with a baleful sneer. “Sorrow over loved ones lost. You have outlived many others, but you have sincere regret for one. One who was destined to die as he did—“

“Destined to die because he took pride in his work enough to own up to his mistakes,” said Piett, looking as if he would very much like to take his own words back. “I’d seen others discarded in the same manner, but never so needlessly, and none of them were half as committed to pleasing Lord Vader as Captain Needa was.”

“He was one captain among hundreds,” said Vader carelessly, sounding almost pleased that Piett’s breaking point had been the death of a friend.

“He was more than enough to change my mind.”

“Then you may tell him that when you meet him again.”

That was an execution order if Motti ever heard one and he was not prepared to watch Vader run Piett through with that crystallized red energy beam. In what he considered to be his grandest and most idiotic move in his three decades of life, Motti lifted his leg and kicked out at the Sith lord, catching him in the knee. Motti’s boot made a dull _thunk_ against the metallic limb in no way that upset the Sith’s well-being, but did disrupt his balance. Vader took an ungainly step to the side and then rounded on Motti.

The Sith, with all their extensive senses and foresight, had not predicted or known that Motti would actually commit to such boorish behavior to buy his friend a few extra seconds of life. He, Conan Motti, had caught the Sith off guard, and that was as good of a send off as any to die by.

But he didn’t die in the second following or the second after that because the Emperor need only lift his hand and Vader remained still. Undoubtedly fuming beneath his mask, but still.

“You continue to both surprise and disappoint me, Admiral Motti,” said the Emperor. “I would have thought you had learned your lesson quite extensively by now in that you are not at this moment, nor have you ever been a match for a Sith.”

“I never said I was, but I’m the only one to have challenged a Sith and still be alive in the aftermath, even if I’m about to die. I don’t regret that.”

“You will. I promise you that, but first, I must know what could have caused a man like you to exchange a life of martial power for death. Your reasons could not have been as selfless as your companions’. A man of political and military gluttony such as yourself could not have had the motivation to defect unless he was offered something of greater value in return. Did the rebels offer you amnesty for the part you played in destroying the Alderaan system?” asked the Emperor knowingly.

_They offered me an end to my nightmares. They offered me the promise that I need never again fear a tyrant who could crush my throat without ever touching me_. _They gave me the means to end what frightens me the most._

“Do you not fear more what would become of you if ever your deceit was discovered, as it now has been? What you experienced at the hands of Lord Vader was but a taste of the power of the dark side. You will wish that he had killed you during your first encounter before this is over, Admiral. Your death will not be quick or merciful.”

He knew he betrayed fear, something he had worked tirelessly to avoid when in the presence of Lord Vader, but the Emperor was an entirely difference evil, a being who sucked the very air out of Motti’s lungs as he stood there in defeat and crippling anticipation.

“When you were chosen to be a part of the Joint Chiefs council, it was not for your intellect, but your aspirations to wipe out the rebels and let the galaxy know that you were largely responsible for it. It was notoriety that you sought. You wanted your name to be in league with Lord Vader’s as one to be feared by the rebels. At what point did you lose that ambition and instead nurture empathy for them?”

_When I saw how so few of them destroyed so many of us. When I saw that they had no fear, even when outnumbered._

“What could have driven _you_ to give up all you had achieved and risk such a painful death if discovered?”

“Him,” said Motti aloud, flickering his eyes toward Vader before quickly looking away. He knew holding eye contact for too long would only end in another assault on his windpipe. Vader, however, took this as a direct dare and stepped in close to him, effectively blocking off his view of anything in front of him. Motti determinedly looked down and away but he could feel the Sith’s body heat and anger burning through his wardrobe of all-black.

“If you would accuse me, Admiral, then look at me as you do so.”

“No.”

“Then you are a coward and a fool.”

“And I won’t be toyed with before I die, not by anyone, least of all you.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the glove rising to strike and he recoiled, but he would not look up. He heard the Sith ignite his saber and saw a red glow ascending next to his face. He had never seen the blade activated, but had heard of the low hum that emitted from it, how it was the last thing many men heard before Vader cut them in half. It would not be the last thing he heard, of this he was absolutely positive. Vader would not allow him to die so easily or so quickly, but the Sith could make the next few minutes extremely painful for him.

The saber sizzled dangerously close to Motti’s jugular, tempting him to twitch away from it, to betray that fear Vader was after.

“Conan, do as he says, dammit,” Piett hissed, and Motti felt a stab of annoyance that he had gone so far as to physically assault a Sith to come to Piett’s aid, yet the former’s idea of reciprocation was to tell him to surrender to the Sith’s wants.

He had to concede. His pride was not stronger than his fear and he had to give in while he still had the ability to do so with grace. Motti lifted his eyes to match the expressionless emptiness of the mask.

“Now, who was it that made you abandon reason to side with the rebel scum? Who do you blame?”

Motti’s tight-lipped, glowering lack of response was all the answer Vader needed.

“Stay your hand, my apprentice,” said the Emperor, not that it had prevented Motti from imagining what Vader would liked to have done to him. Motti had seen his own demise in the goggle-like reflectiveness of Vader’s mask’s eye sockets. He saw Vader run him through with the saber, saw his guts spilling out onto the floor at his feet. If he had been a man less composed than he was, he would have made water and died in humiliation but as it stood, he had not yet defaced himself.

“Though it might have been Lord Vader who drove you to this decision, you are not frightened of him, young one, but his powers. You forsook your loyalty to my Empire in fear of the powers used against you, is that not so? There was no love lost between you and Lord Vader, but it is the Force that keeps you awake at night, trembling and waiting. Sleep will not come as you cringe in fear that you will feel that unpreventable pressure closing off your airways. You can almost see it, but never know if it is really there and you keep one hand on your throat as if your mortal presence can deny the dark side. You are rank with sweat and the stench of your own limitations as you come to realize that you are nothing next to the power of the Force.”

If he was to die this day with the Sith looking down on him, he needed one less thing for them to scorn him for and exhibiting any signs that the Emperor’s words were true was one of those things he could not show. As if he needed a reminder of how he had spent every waking moment of the past five years. The Sith already knew what they needed to know about him; taunting him for it was as low as they could go.

“And after all of that, after twice evading that well-deserving death, it has come for you all the same.”

He came undone. Jerjerrod had warned him, but he had taken the prediction with a grain of salt. Now there was no mystery to how he would meet his end; all that remained to be discovered was when. He would die as he had lived these past years: in fear of that which he did not want to believe in. The thought filled him with equal parts dread and fury. What an end for him, as inglorious as the nameless, faceless pilots who were blasted into oblivion in full view of the window beside the Emperor’s throne.

It took half a second to process and a further two to realize that there was a full-scale battle happening in open space above the forest moon. The rebels had arrived and were engaging the fleet in open assault, biding their time until the shield generator could be deactivated.

The Sith saw where Motti’s gaze had been drawn and then Jerjerrod and Piett also watched in fixated awe of the brilliant explosions of light as snub fighters clashed with TIE fighters. At such a distance, it was impossible to tell how the battle was faring.

“The bunker is secure and the shield well protected,” said Vader, no doubt sensing his master’s unease at this development. “It will be some time before the codes can be changed, but any resistance met on the moon will be dealt with.”

“The codes have already served their purpose,” said Skywalker with something akin to a smirk trying to force its way onto his face. “The rebels have already infiltrated the bunker and the shield will be down soon. This battle station has at best an hour left to its name.”

/ /

**COMMANDER JERJERROD**

“Precautions have been taken in the rare event that the shields fail,” Vader assured the Emperor. “Your shuttle is standing by, my master.”

“I will not hasten to flee when two valuable lives hang in the balance. I will hear your answers now.” The Emperor appealed to Jerjerrod and Skywalker. “Your only exit from this station is aboard my shuttle, otherwise the rebels, should they move to infiltrate, will be destroying both of you along with it.”

“I have made my peace with my decision,” said Skywalker in a display of confidence that Jerjerrod did not feel but wished he did. “If I am to die, it will be shortly after you. If I don’t leave this station alive, I promise you, neither will you.”

“A bold statement from an unarmed boy. If you are at peace with your decision, you may die with it, but before you do—Commander, what is it to be?”

Dare he refuse twice? The first time he had given an answer the Emperor expected to flush out the power the Sith was seeking. but the way Skywalker was looking at him now seemed to be leaning toward a hint as to how he should answer this time. The Jedi was trying to communicate to him, provide a clue. He willed Skywalker to read his thoughts and feelings in the hope that it would open up the line of communication but the only signal he was picking up on was to stall for time.

He made the mistake of keeping his mind open as he let his thoughts turn to Motti and Piett. How long could their luck hold out? How else would the Emperor use them to control Jerjerrod or provoke him? And what if Jerjerrod was too weak or too late to help them this time? It cost considerable energy to reach through the Force and push the Imperial Guards away when Jerjerrod had no prior training on how to do so and conserve his efforts. He was not convinced that he could do so again.

“I can see that already you have a distraction which will need to be remedied,” said the Emperor. “As a gesture of your loyalty to me, you will use your powers as they were intended to be used. It will be your hand that strikes the final blow.”

There was only one explanation as to what that could mean and his own prediction for Motti’s fate had cruelly become a reality in a sickening twist. Of course it would be Motti, the only one of the three of them who had marked himself years ago. Motti, who had fallen to the wayside and all but painted a target upon his back with each passing day. The Emperor had known that Motti would find himself here, that providence would deliver him as a rebel sympathizer to the Emperor in chains because of that one chance mistake made in Vader’s company.

But instead of having Vader do the honors, the Emperor was now issuing the task to Jerjerrod who was supposed to look his friend in the eye and murder him. That fear he had sensed from Motti was now completely reasonable. 

“Your investment in these men is too deeply rooted to sever completely. I offer you the chance to save one by killing the other.”

Jerjerrod blanched and almost, _almost_ chuckled. If the Emperor claimed to know how far he would go for these men, how did he think Jerjerrod would react when given the option of allowing one to become a martyr? And how could his soul deal with such a decision? Cut down Motti in cold blood for the sake of Piett and have the latter hate him for passing that verdict for him, choosing which would live and which would die as if their lives were at his disposal. What sort of fool did he have to be to believe that he was in any way saving Piett’s life by allowing the Emperor to continuously use him to make Jerjerrod do his bidding?

“Look upon your victim-to-be. See him, see his life hang in the balance, existing on a plane in which there is him and you and your power. Envision his throat and the pulsation you find there. Summon the strength to reach across the chasm and grasp it. Feel your hand closing around it, willing it to cave in under your grasp. Empty your mind of all else and see only that throat. Crush it. His life is yours to take.”

“No,” said Jerjerrod immediately, knowing that his insolence would cost him dearly.

“Be it by your hand or another, this is your friend’s fate. You do not want to see my hand forced.”

“Commander, if you kill him, there will never be redemption for you,” said Skywalker, pressing his words upon Jerjerrod in an attempt to reassure him and offer him hope. “You will not be able to turn back once you have taken his life.” 

He did not need a Jedi to tell him how damaged he would be if he committed to this deed. He knew what his soul could stand before it shattered and it would not be able to withstand this. At risk of his very being, at risk of Firmus Piett’s life, was it worth it to take Conan Motti’s? Would this not be kinder than allowing the Emperor or Vader to deal the final blow? Was it not better to die this way? Or was it worse?

As he had told Motti before, he had to consider an alternate dimension and place himself in Motti’s situation. How would he be faring if it was revealed to him that Motti possessed manipulation of the Force? What vivid thoughts would be plundering through his head as he saw Motti contemplate whether or not to kill him? Would he have a forgiving heart for his friend? Would he wish to die from being struck down by a friend in place of a Sith?

Jerjerrod lifted his hand, forming a cupping motion in preparation. His vision narrowed, showing him only Motti bound upright and helpless. Motti’s trepidation was present in the form of the one tear that fell directly from his eyelash to the ground, gone in less than a second, but planted forever in Jerjerrod’s mind. It was all Motti could muster, all he had to give.

The one man, the one ally Moti had in his fight against the Force was now to be the one to use it on him, for the last time. He was going to die battling uselessly against the very thing that had plagued him since it was first used against him. He would die—not from Vader’s fury as he thought—but by Jerjerrod’s doing and that was worse than any fate he could have conjured for himself. This was an outcome he could not have predicted and he had nothing to face it with. 

And Jerjerrod no longer contemplated what he would feel if it were him bound to the column. He knew that he would hate Motti if the admiral was given the order to put him down. It would not have been Motti’s fault, but the last sensations to pass through Jerjerrod’s brain would be to loathe the man who had claimed to want to protect him.

His responsibility. _**My** responsibility._

Motti’s thoughts, his innermost remorse and terror, his very existence was at Jerjerrod’s disposal as the Force empathetically linked him to this man.

_Hear me,_ Jerjerrod projected to his friend. _I am so sorry._

Motti gave a nod. A single nod of acceptance and Jerjerrod heard him give his consent to die by his friend’s hands. For once, Motti held pity for him in a wild reversal of fortune. Motti considered how his murder would affect Jerjerrod, even at the price of saving Piett. This decision would damn him for the rest of his days and Motti held the deepest sympathy for him in the last bit of room that remained unoccupied by hate.

_Go on_ , he told Jerjerrod. _I’m ready._

_No, you aren’t._

“Tiaan, stop.”

Piett’s voice reached him, though it seemed from the opposite side of a vast corridor. An echo of a sound born from a source he could not see. Only, he _could_ see Piett; it was the words that took so long to reach him. He saw his own face reflected in those wide hazel eyes and he did not recognize the man he saw looking back at him. 

The man he saw there wore his uniform but the similarities ended there. The man Piett saw, the man Motti saw was one of hooded eyes on the brink of changing; the blue was desperately trying to maintain dominance but the red was seeping in like venom. Teeth clenched, lips peeled back, snarl lines upon his nose and brow like an animal just before the lunge. But it was the expression, the concentration of a man about to commit murder that did not belong more than anything else. That look should never have found residence on Jerjerrod’s face. What horrible, monstrous creature had taken over his body?

Jerjerrod felt blood in his nose again, felt his head pounding and at risk of damaging itself with his effort. Envisioning how easy it would be to crush an object in his hands as if were made of porcelain, he saw Motti’s neck before him, pulse beating an imprint below his jaw line, muscles straining to swallow. And then he saw a metal link connecting two wrists together.

_Crush it_ , ordered the Emperor in his head.

It was there, stationary, trapped, ready for him. He only needed the willpower to carry out the execution. He needed the power, born not from the darkness but from the need to provide mercy to his friend and save him from worse than death.

Motti was nearly convulsing as he held his breath, waiting…and remembering. Jerjerrod saw Motti calling upon one last memory, one moment in which he had known happiness. He saw his own, much younger face watching the Motti of his youth with fondness.

The dark side wanted them both. It needed to work through Jerjerrod to consume Motti. It had claimed Motti when it sampled its first taste of him and to take ownership of him permanently, it needed to pass from Jerjerrod’s hand. If Jerjerrod proceeded, he would not be mercy-killing his friend; he would be condemning him to whatever existed of hell.

Darkness was needed to commit such a heinous act, but he had none left in him. The Force would not allow him to end another being’s life when no noble reason existed for doing so. The power that had come to him out of his own greed would no longer serve him now that he was committed to this act of kindness. Only if it meant sparing a soul further torment could he go through with this murder and the dark side would not allow him to be merciful. The Force would not allow him to harvest the specter of death in his heart. He felt the shadow lingering over him begin to rise and allow a faint glimmer of light to shine upon his shoulders.

The plane on which only he and Motti had existed vanished, though an image of bound wrists remained.

The Emperor’s impatience was most apparent as he hissed, “Now. Do it now.”

“I can’t,” Jerjerrod panted.

His arm fell back into place at his side and he pivoted toward the Emperor, resolute that he would not be manipulated into doing the Emperor’s work for him. Nothing could push him so far. There was no conflict within him for the dark side to feed on and nothing left for the Emperor to prey upon.

Wiping at his bleeding nose with the back of his hand, Jerjerrod shook his head. “I won’t.”

“Your devotion to lesser beings has failed you for the last time, Commander.”

/ /

**ADMIRAL PIETT**

The Emperor’s attempts to help the dark side of the Force seduce Jerjerrod had not at all gone according to plan, and his displeasure at this outcome showed quite clearly. He had tried to make murder sound so enticing by promising one life if Jerjerrod took the other, but Tiaan Jerjerrod could not be robbed of his morals so easily and Piett had never been prouder of his friend. 

“Your feelings betray you; you would see worlds burn to save these men you love as kin.” It was meant to be a seething insult delivered with the utmost antipathy.

But there was no shame in that. From the moment they enlisted in the academy, they no longer belonged to any family, no longer had anyone to whom they could call kin, and so it only made sense that they had made do where they could. They had left their families behind at eleven years of age and spent the next twenty to thirty years in the company of only the men they served with. No lives in the universe mattered but those of the men beside them. If their fellow soldiers were the only family they could lay claim to, there was absolutely no shame in that.

Piett knew no indignity in claiming these two men as the only semblance of family he acknowledged and he knew Jerjerrod would not either. His own flesh and blood had been less of a family than the men who shared his uniform. His mother had six boys to singlehandedly provide for after his father and eldest brother had lost their lives when the Clone Wars reached Axxila. As second to youngest, he knew even at such a young age that his life was one of the least valuable in the family, unable to find work, unable to provide, always a burden. He had a smaller chance of surviving the famine that would claim the lives of a fifth of the world’s population, including those of two more of his brothers. 

Before the famine could fully settle in, he had stowed away aboard one of the last of the supply shuttles that passed through his village and not so much as shed a tear at his departure, knowing his mother would see it as one less mouth to struggle to feed and his brothers would see it as one less body to compete against for their mother’s affection. He would not be missed.

Luckily (or perhaps unluckily) he had been discovered by an academy recruiter when the shuttle arrived at its base dock and in one of the few rare instances where he had been quick on his feet, he had stated that he was seeking recruitment into the academy. His bedraggled appearance did not offer a promising start, but apparently the fact that he was so young, starving, and still able to stand on his own two feet played in his favor. If he could survive in his emaciated state, he must be made of the same inner fire that fueled all potential Imperials.

His quick ascension in his studies made the academy rescind their original doubts and forgive the amount he would have owed to fully attend and make use of its facilities. He was a gifted tactician and exceeded expectations, granting him a rank of ensign before Jerjerrod and Motti had finished their studies. 

It was only then that he discovered that two of his brothers had been lost to hunger, though he could not bring himself to mourn them more than he mourned the loss of life in general. He had not known them well. He knew their names, he shared a bed with them in the three beds divided amongst the seven members of their household, but they had worked the mines deep in the mountains for most of his years with them and he rarely saw their faces, hardly knew them. They were blood, and little else, as was his mother, as were the rest of his family.

The woman who birthed him, the boys who shared his family name, nothing more.

Not like the boys who had grown into the men who now were about to die with him. He knew these men and knew them well. They did not have a family dynamic: they did not exchange mindless small talk on their likes and dislikes as they grew older, but they retained the information they had learned about each other in boyhood. Piett remembered Maximillian Veers’s aversion to dairy, he remembered the two mile run Lorth Needa would take every evening before supper around the floating academy’s recreational track to clear his mind, he remembered how Conan Motti’s meticulous routine before lights out could not be interrupted for anything, and he remembered Tiaan Jerjerrod slipping an almost indiscernible portion but a portion nonetheless of his own food onto Motti’s plate at mealtimes without fail. He remembered the years spent studying his friends as if he would be tested on knowing them, to store the knowledge and only later realize it was a substitution for the brothers he had never known, trying to make up for lost time.

Their duties had separated them and never reunited some, but Firmus Piett would call himself lucky to have come back to two of them, even if it was at the end. The last year of his life had been neither easy nor pleasant, yet he had stared out his quarters window every morning at the unfinished Death Star, knowing they were within reach. He had made reports to them, seen them during Joint Council sessions, spoken to them briefly in passing. They had not had a meaningful conversation between the three of them but for the one in which they all agreed that the Empire had seen their servitude long enough. The dynamic between them was tense, as was everything nowadays, but he still prided himself in knowing them.

Their collective decision to aid the rebels had not been taken lightly, for they all had different reasons for doing so, but they were adamant about the ultimate goal. And though they were men changed and twisted by circumstance, their essence, the part of them that made them the boys Piett remembered, remained. He knew when Motti insulted him and accused him that this was the same boy who had praised and respected him. He knew the distant and conflicted commander would fall back on his values if pushed too far. He knew that of the three of them, it would be Jerjerrod who took the blame firsthand if their treachery was discovered. Not because he was the eldest, for he wasn’t (Piett had that honor), not because he held the highest command, but because he had the courage to do so. He knew that Motti would have some last words of impertinence before he died. His friends were predictable in the way they had not changed despite the Empire’s best attempts to make them all into one mindless uniformed being.

These men were the last of a life unattached to the Empire that Piett had and if his devotion to them, their commitment to each other was a weakness, he was proud to share in it. He felt a rush of gratitude swelling in his chest to have known these men and called them friend.

It all processed in a moment for Piett, but brought him back into awareness in time to hear Jerjerrod reply in answer to the Emperor’s sneering observation, “I would.”

The Imperial Guards rushed him and Piett heard himself cry out in alarm to see Jerjerrod unarmed, defenseless. But the commander sidestepped one spear thrust with the reflexes of a different, more agile man, and turned the weapon back on its wielder. A shot of blue light sparked at the end of the spear, worked its way through the guard, and left the man motionless on the floor. Stunned by his own actions, Jerjerrod stared at the results of his newfound abilities for the two seconds he was allowed before they were called to action once again. He parried an attack from the remaining guard, then worked his recently acquired weapon between the guard’s grip, disarming him. The elevator door slid open and six troopers stormed the chamber, opening fire on Jerjerrod who had ducked behind the guard to use the one human shield he had. As gunfire riddled the guard’s body, Jerjerrod swiped the hidden blaster from the man’s robes and fired without aiming at the oncoming troopers. His haphazard firing put one trooper in the six down.

Commander Skywalker had taken the opportunity to use Jerjerrod’s sudden attack to his advantage. His lightsaber flew free from Lord Vader’s belt and into its master’s hands. He deflected two blaster shots back at their source, felling the troopers who had fired them before matching blades with Vader. Father and son engaged in combat as Jerjerrod made to shoot at the remaining three troopers.

Then a single burst of electric blue energy shot across the room, made contact with Jerjerrod’s exposed back, and the commander shrieked before he fell hard and flat on his stomach. Piett could see his eyes widening in incredulity and perplexity at what had just hit him in such a blindsided attack. The blaster and staff had fallen out of reach, but he didn’t try to retrieve them. He simply lay there in shock with tremors running through his body, sending his limbs involuntarily twitching.

The Emperor descended upon him, hands prepared to commit to the act again and Jerjerrod turned onto his back just in time to see the electricity make contact with him. It lasted less than a second, but it rendered him motionless apart from the pained teeth gnashing as he tried to push past the moment.

Motti was pulling against his bonds with such colossal effort that a capillary had burst in his forehead and as the Emperor struck Jerjerrod again, the admiral let out a shout of both frustration and horror. He cursed the Emperor and hollered at Jerjerrod to get up, to do something other than lay there and let it all happen.

But Piett was once again frozen at the sight of another murder about to happen in front of him. His body’s answer to shock was to enter a state of complete physical and mental paralysis which had not served him well in the past. He wished he had been gifted with the fight or flight response like his friends instead of the freeze response, but his body was doing its best to sustain him in the only way it knew how. He was no match for any physical altercation and he didn’t possess the audible skill to pass an order that would make the quarrel desist, so he entered a blissful state of nothingness to preserve himself. The only way he was able to rouse himself was to realize he had been given an order, as he did now.

His fear was what rooted him in place, but his brain was sending him a message that someone had spoken to him. He heard a word making its way into his thought process and becoming a reality. He might have heard it in his head, but maybe it was spoken aloud. He couldn’t identify the foundation, only that it commanded him: _run._

He knew only that his hands were free where Motti’s were not, his body untouched by the static current that had just expelled from the Emperor’s fingertips toward Jerjerrod. Another series of volts coursed through Jerjerrod and the commander let his head drop sideways, purposefully watching Piett, trying to make him understand.

_Run._

A _clank_ upon the floor made Motti turn back to him, glance at the floor between him and see what Piett couldn’t, but already knew.

“Run,” Motti whispered.

There was nothing to prevent him from doing what was needed, and he ran. His way was clear, his enemies distracted, and he had the element of surprise on his side, but for how long, he couldn’t say. He knew he wouldn’t reach the lift, and it was already too heavily guarded anyway. His next best and only bet was to attempt to clear half of the chamber and take the emergency stairwell on the far side of the room. This was the one instance where his size might be to his advantage as a smaller target to pick out in the dimly lit room.

As the polished, blasted bits of leather they were, his boots squeaked something terrible with every step and despite the electric-sounding clashes of the lightsaber battle happening on the other side of the chamber, his boots were louder still. Stupidly, he skidded to a halt to see if he had been detected.

He had.

The Emperor had taken his sights off of Jerjerrod to settle directly on him. A cold wash of sweat ran down Piett’s back as those luminous eyes marked him for death. It was too much to hope for that he was out of the Emperor’s reach and his master raised a hand. So intent was he on not catching a lightning bolt to the chest that he tripped backward over his own feet and fell directly onto his tailbone.

The electricity never came, though. Instead, the Emperor pointed one long, bony, menacing finger at him and ordered, “Cut him down.”

“Run, Firmus!” hollered Motti.

With some undignified scrambling, Piett was up again, this time with a fire under his heels to aid him. He heard blaster fire skim over his head. Cutting left, he made a wild veer back to the right just as quickly to present less of a target to the troopers on his heels. Nearly to his destination, his boots lost traction on the slick marble floor. He let his motion carry him on, under another hailstorm of gunfire. One blast grazed his ear, singeing off several fine hairs and leaving his ear tip burning.

The spiral staircase was just ahead, if he could only reach it. Snatching up a dead trooper’s blaster, he fired blindly over his shoulder despite knowing that if his laser hit one of those lightsabers, it would rebound on him. He had to round the railing to reach the top of the stairway and once again let his feet continue on as he grasped the railing to anchor and then spin himself around.

His boot had just descended upon the first step when he felt white-hot pain strike him through his side and heard the report of a light repeating blaster followed by Jerjerrod shrieking his name. His body made a graceful dive before colliding with the first of many descending steps to come.


	8. Something In Between

**COMMANDER JERJERROD**

“ _Firmus_!”

Jerjerrod’s voice had come back just in time to scream his friend’s name as he watched the blaster shot sink through the flesh of his left side.

Motti had turned his face away once he saw the blaster make contact and with each deafening _thud_ of Piett’s body tumbling down two levels, he winced. There was a tremble on his lips, an attempt to quickly process, forget, and move on from what had just occurred, but Motti was not so efficient in discarding his friends as the Empire was. Jerjerrod did not have to utilize his connection with the Force to know how grievously wounded Motti’s heart was. If his body wasn’t currently trying to learn how to function after being electrocuted, he might have said that his own heart felt the same.

“If he’s not already dead, finish him,” commanded the Emperor as they heard Admiral Piett’s body hitting the last of the metallic steps.

One of the troopers mounted the stairs and hurried down, weapon upright. Jerjerrod listened to the footfalls fading away. There was a report from a blaster and then silence. The trooper did not return and Jerjerrod recalled that Piett had had a blaster of his own with him when he fell.

_He’s still alive_ , he told himself. But he could do more than that. If he could sense when the body was in pain, he could sense if it was still alive and he reached out in all directions, listening, feeling, hoping that this Force would work for him as it did for the men who abused its power. He was known to it and it to him because of his empathy and longing to understand his friends’ emotions. It was thanks to them that he had this power at all, and so if Piett was still alive, the Force would tell him.

He saw himself staring up at a black ceiling. Smoke coiled upward and he was panting heavily. His ribs felt as if they were melting in place and something heavy lay across his legs. Two faces appeared above him in Imperial garb, but they didn’t move to harm him. They only watched and encouraged him to stand. Then he returned in both body and mind to the Emperor’s chamber where he was still on his side after having seen Piett disappear down the staircase.

Motti was watching him, dissecting his every move since for all he knew, Piett was dead, leaving only Jerjerrod as the last friendly face he would see. How could Jerjerrod convey to him that their friend was not yet dead? Would it do any good to tell him? Even if Piett was alive yet, he was badly wounded and in no position to help either of them. And even if he could help, to what extent would it benefit them? 

Their only hope was the Jedi currently locked in combat with his father at the opposite end of the throne room from where Piett had taken his fall. Green struck red and red answered back, always flashing their colors against the surrounding walls but never mixing. Jedi and Sith, nothing could exist in between. Unless…unless Jerjerrod was that one thing that could exist in between. The darkness had come to him and made the Force awaken within him, but it was the light which allowed the Force to stay with him when he could no longer supply the darkness with what it needed to continue surviving in its mortal host.

To what extent this awareness might prove to be useful if he was fated to die in the next several moments, he didn’t know, but he had a strong suspicion that it was knowledge he needed to understand, and quickly.

With Jerjerrod going nowhere, Motti immobilized, and Piett dying or dead, the Emperor had no other pressing matters but to turn his attention back to the lightsaber duel which was rapidly leaning in the Jedi’s favor. Vader appeared to be tiring, his parries coming slowing, his strikes falling lighter. Skywalker had youth on his side, but something else, too. Not anger for his father, but for what had become of the man. The same injustice that had set the Imperials on this path. 

It occurred to Jerjerrod that Skywalker’s stout resolution that he was incorruptible might have resonated with Vader on a level the Emperor could not understand. There was an opening in which Skywalker easily could have parted company with his arm if Vader had had a mind to swipe his blade upward, but the Sith did not take advantage of it. Vader was not tiring; he was holding back. If Skywalker sensed that, he gave no indication. If anything, he came at Vader more forcefully until he had backed the Sith into a scaffolding support.

He threw out his hand and sent Vader’s back slamming hard into the support. Vader was left exposed for two precious, fateful seconds. Skywalker’s blade cut through Vader’s thigh, exposing wires and various bits of machinery from the artificial limb. Though it was not flesh and bone, it provided the same sensations from the limb to the brain and Vader fell to his knees with his free hand clutching at the damaged area. The Jedi struck again, slicing across Vader’s forearm and the Sith’s lightsaber toppled from its master’s grasp. Skywalker kicked it aside where it skidded across the floor and came to a rest just feet behind the Emperor.

Seeing that his lieutenant was now rendered useless, the Emperor turned his powers upon Skywalker who—still poised to deliver a mortal blow if his father should attempt to rise—was unprepared for the attack. The electricity sent him spiraling into the catwalk and he slid down onto the floor, limp and lifeless. The Emperor then looked down upon Jerjerrod with that same hunger for eliciting agony and Jerjerrod feared he would not survive another electric assault, no matter how brief. His thoughts were only to not die on his back but nothing below his waist seemed to be working. He turned back over onto his stomach to crawl, to put any amount of distance between himself and the Sith.

He had not covered much ground when he thought to look behind him and see how closely the Sith was pursuing him, see if he was being played with for the Sith’s amusement. Though the Emperor’s eyes remained on Jerjerrod, his hands were rotating toward the column where Motti now stood alone.

As perceptive and resilient as he was, Motti was still just a mere human mortal with no connection to the Force and therefore, nothing to shield him from such a brutal attack. This would be far, far worse than seeing Lord Vader strangle him or indeed, having to strangle him himself. Watching his friend be incinerated, alive to experience every excruciating second of it was something Jerjerrod could not live with.

He needed a weapon. A blaster, a stun gun, anything, but the nearest item of any fathomable use was the all-black metal cylindrical handgrip behind the Emperor. Jerjerrod reached out his hand for it despite how pitifully far out of reach it remained. He could crawl to it, but it would take too long and devour the last bit of time he had –that Motti had.

_I need it._

His fingers splayed out, flexing and locking into place as if they could will the saber into their reach alone. He had no experience in this and had never seen it done, but he knew that it would involve concentration the likes of which he couldn’t fathom at this moment. How could he convey to the Force that he had to have the blade?

He could hear Motti struggling against his bindings to escape as the Emperor toyed with his patience and his fear. 

_I need it._

Jerjerrod did not know if his extremities were now also shutting down on him, but he felt a tingle at his fingertips, a prickling heat that felt like a forewarning before a storm. Did the handle move? Or was he now losing his eyesight as well?

_The blade is not yours. It was not earned._ The incorporeal voice was heavy with age as it delivered these rules of a religion he had never known, did not fully believe in until now, and did not adhere to. If his hate had given life to these dormant powers before, desperation needed to fuel them now. He had not crafted the blade, not fought with it or held it at his side and it was not his spoil for he had not disarmed its owner, but it would be his.

_It is mine. The need is mine, and so is the blade._

There was no mistaking the slight, nearly indiscernible tremor in the cylinder, but the voice that would deny him the blade pulled back on it.

_The Force is not your weapon. It is meant to be your aid._

But he didn’t want a weapon anymore; he wanted a barrier other than his own body.

He could almost see a link between his outstretched hand and the cylinder, established by a translucent trail of what looked to be something thicker than air but less dense than smoke. He imagined the handle caught on that current, traveling, sailing into his open hand…

“Your mind tells me that you will not scream, that the satisfaction of hearing you will not be mine,” said the Emperor as he neared the columns, “when I can hear your soul screaming even now before I’ve touched you. I’ll hear you, yet, Admiral”

“You won’t,” Motti promised. What a prideful man, unable to admit his fear even as his voice shook with it, and how it shook. The man was petrified but as he had in the face of any danger, he denied it in the hope it would make it less severe.

Jerjerrod left his aches and unsteadiness on the floor where he had fallen and was on his feet, sprinting across the room and flicking his thumb to activate the beam of red. He did not know if his efforts would pay off or if the blade was strong enough to repel the Emperor’s attack and if it didn’t, he would be the first to find out in the most brutal way possible. The hold was unfamiliar in his hands, the blade too long, the reach too far and he nearly sliced off his own ear as he swung it around. He brought the blade up in front of him to catch and deflect the spiderwebbing electricity that shot out of the Emperor’s fingertips. The force of catching the formidable power and holding it at bay made him slide a few inches back until he was actively pressing forward with his body, leaning only on the opposing energy.

The electricity caught with a searing crackling noise that was deafening but Jerjerrod dared not take either hand from the handgrip to cover his ears. Praying that the blade’s energy would hold, he tried to turn the electricity back toward its source, but it took everything he had to even keep the blade level to deflect and so doing anything else was out of the question. He continued sliding back until he felt his heels come into contact with what had to be one of Motti’s boots. Then that same boot was pressed against the small of his back, giving him some sort of anchor.

He tasted something along the lines of copper on his upper lip as his nose once again began to bleed. This standoff was draining him of his energy and he could not just stand here until it ran out completely and opened up a window for the Emperor to once again attempt to electrocute Motti. Something else needed to happen, help needed to come.

And it did in the form of Skywalker leaping from clear across the room to bring his blade down on the Emperor. Attuned to all human movement within the chamber, the Emperor must have sensed the attack coming and directed his power at the Jedi instead who had to switch maneuvers in mid-air to block the counter-move. Skywalker was still on the offense and pressed forward with more power than Jerjerrod had, driving the Emperor back toward his throne.

Jerjerrod’s arms were almost numb from the effort of holding up the lightsaber and he let them drop, lungs heaving. His body told him that he had just lifted a weight three times his size and held it aloft for several minutes. The pressure at his back was removed and he had to bring his mind back around to the most urgent issue.

He moved around to the back of the column where Motti’s wrists were bound. Spreading Motti’s hands as far apart as they would go to make the binders taut, he advised, “Don’t move.” He didn’t trust his hand-eye coordination at the moment, but he didn’t think he could so seamlessly break Motti’s binders as he had broken Piett’s and so this was the next best option. He lowered the blade tip to the metal links and when he heard it sizzle on impact, he held his breath to finish with a swipe.

Motti brought his newly freed arms back around and though he looked somewhat miffed that his wrists still had the binders attached, he was nonetheless grateful to no longer be held at such incapacity to react. 

Time worked at half speed, alerting them to the battle between Jedi and Sith occurring just feet away but also reminding them that the Death Star was scheduled for annihilation and that Skywalker had guaranteed an hour at most until the rebels destroyed the shield generator. And in the middle of it all stood the two of them, unable to help in either situation. What assistance could they be to the Jedi when they had one lightsaber between the two of them and no idea how to properly wield it? If Jerjerrod attempted to intervene, he would most assuredly only become a hindrance.

Instinct told Jerjerrod to lift the blade once more into defensive position which he did in time to deflect a blaster bolt fired by one of the remaining Stormtroopers who had wisely remained out of the fight until they were certain they could fell an opponent. They had not banked on Jerjerrod being in any position to fight back, however. Another blast came his way which Jerjerrod repelled into the wall.

No further fire was exchanged as a black figure rose from where the Jedi had cut him down and commanded the troopers to abandon their posts. On one hand, Jerjerrod was ever so thankful for the timing because he was sure he could not have defended himself and Motti with such inexperience but on the other hand, he now had a Sith as his adversary and his only advantage was the blade in his hands.

Vader approached but made no move to summon the use of the Force. Jerjerrod sensed no burning hatred from this man who had never ceased emitting such powerful waves of it before. Still, Jerjerrod widened his stance in front of Motti who had ducked behind him during the first blaster fire. 

The least powerful man, the most ordinary one, a human. That was Motti in this room of Sith and Jedi and whatever Jerjerrod was and with Skywalker occupied, Jerjerrod was all that stood between that human and Vader. The Sith had more reason and want to kill Motti than the Emperor and now with his master distracted, he could deal the death blow.

If Jerjerrod could fend off Vader, it might give Motti time to run, to make for the staircase down which Piett had fallen…

Vader stood before him now. He could have summoned the blade to his hand or used the Force in some other manner to tilt the odds in his favor, but he hadn’t. He stood stoic, waiting. Behind those soulless eye sockets, Jerjerrod knew the Sith was leaving the decision up to him to fight or surrender. In his moment of irresolution, Jerjerrod sensed something else, something more from the Sith.

Respect. Respect for _him_ and his choice.

Jerjerrod deactivated the blade and held out the handle to its original master. Vader took back his weapon, brought it back to its fiery red life, and turned away from Jerjerrod and Motti. In seven long strides he reached Skywalker and the Emperor who had succeeded in destroying the throne. The Sith added his blade to the fight, joining Skywalker’s to fight against the Emperor.

Now truly faced with indecision, Jerjerrod motioned that Motti should retrieve a blaster but no sooner had Motti done so that the far side of the chamber erupted in brilliant blue light as the Emperor unleashed all hell upon Skywalker and Vader. Father and son succumbed to the Emperor’s overshadowing energy, leaving the choice unmistakably clear that Jerjerrod and Motti should have evacuated the room several seconds ago.

The only weapon that could possibly hold the Sith at bay was a lightsaber and Jerjerrod had given that weapon back to Vader, leaving him with no means to defend Motti this time.

“You thought your trick of the Force was enough to defeat me?” The Emperor advanced on them with his gaze narrowed on Jerjerrod but neither moved. They simply couldn’t. “I am the most powerful being you have ever encountered, the most powerful being to ever pass into your miserable field of vision. I have studied and learned the ways of the dark side for four times the number of years you have drawn breath. You are not fit to use that which you do not understand. The Force is not a material object to be called upon when it best suits you. The power residing in you is not yours; you have not earned it, and have no claim to it.”

He should have done something then, something other than accepting his rapidly approaching doom, but his legs were reluctant to move.

“You have no respect for it, and are undeserving of such power. You are a lesser man now than you ever were and your final mistake was thinking that the Force in any form could save you. Now, watch your friend die from your mistake.”

Jerjerrod gave Motti a hard shove in the abdomen, hoping that he could at least buy the admiral time to run with his sacrifice. The electricity pitched through him and he arched himself backward as an immediate response. He was being flung aside, hurtling through the air, and landing quite a distance away from where he had started. Something was burning as the stench of ash reached his nose and he had the distinct feeling it was _him_.

To his dismay, he saw that Motti had not made it far at all before the electricity was born yet again from the Emperor’s hands, cutting through empty space to collide with Motti. The admiral was thrown backward into the very pillar he had been bound to and on impact, he slid right down to the reflective floor. The attack had lasted less than a second, but it grounded him where he lay, the side of his face pressed into the cool stone as his eyes bulged.

His inner cries of turmoil stung, his silent pleas for mercy heard only by Jerjerrod who could do nothing to stop it. For even as Jerjerrod scrambled to his feet and started forward to do the stupid thing and use his body to block the energy, the Emperor held him in place with the Force, immobilizing him, preventing him from doing anything but watching and listening.

“Hear him cry out for your help and curse you in the same breath,” the Emperor taunted. He struck again, holding for half a second longer to where Motti flopped like a skewered fish out of water.

“Feel his pain, his and the other’s.”

He did. Jerjerrod could feel that somewhere, Piett’s wounded body was roiling in unison with Motti’s as it tried to bring itself to working order again.

“And know that you did this to them.”

_Get up, keep moving_ , he heard Piett say. _The pain won’t stop. On your feet._

_It burns, it **burns**_ **,** wailed Motti.

The Emperor was cackling now, a sound of sadistic amusement, and the subject of his enjoyment lay in the form of Motti now digging his fingernails into the floor to pull himself inch by painstaking inch away from the Sith.

_There’s so much blood…but you have to walk. You mustn’t lie down._

_Everything is burning._

Again, the Emperor struck Motti and the admiral gave up his attempts to crawl away. Instead, his legs curled inward, rendering him as helpless as he had been that night Jerjerrod had watched over him as he slept. Small, afraid, and unwilling to ask for any man to come to his aid.

Not now. Now, as he hugged his arms around his middle, thrashing about in the after-shock of the latest attack, a puddle of both saliva and tears were spreading out from under his head. He bawled for his friend to please, _please_ end it. 

Jerjerrod was pushing with every ounce of strength he possessed to break the Emperor’s hold on him, if only to reach Motti and end his misery as he should have done when he had the chance. He had forced the Emperor’s hand just as the Sith had warned him not to and Motti was the one to suffer for it. Jerjerrod had not spared him that.

His mistake, his costly mistake. However this ended, it was Jerjerrod who ultimately killed his friend, not the Emperor.

“Hear him, Commander, and know that you brought this upon him.”

“Tiaan…Tiaan make it stop—“

Motti had bitten through his lip now and red joined the transparent puddle beneath him. The electricity enveloped him for a fraction of a second and then it was over, but it pushed Motti to the brink and then straight over. He extended his arm to Jerjerrod and electricity curdled off of his fingertips.

“Tiaan, _please!_ ” he screamed.

Neither Motti nor Piett knew that Jerjerrod could hear them, hear their inner cries. It was the blight of the Force, something Jerjerrod could not comprehend and could not bear. This burden was too much for a man who knew not how to exploit the power as many before him had done. What sort of fate would curse a man to discover his ability and be subjected to the worst of it just as quickly? Fate was cruel to offer this to him when he had no teacher, no knowledge of it. How was he to control it and push it away? How could he silence the screaming?

_It will listen to you if you surrender to it. Let go of that which matters most._

What mattered most? His life, or theirs? His life, or any life? Why had he joined the Alliance, if not to be the shield that no one else was capable of being? For Motti who feared the dark side of the Force, for Piett who feared his turn with the noose about his neck, for Needa who had done his job well and died for it, for the thousands upon thousands of dispensable men that were enlisted to die, to be the foundation upon which the Empire was built in one man’s thirst for ultimate supremacy. 

Before this night, Jerjerrod’s fears had been plentiful but his only fear now was of failure. His greatest asset was his unwavering loyalty to his men, but he had to put aside both his fear and his strength, surrender that which mattered most, be willing to accept the penultimate conclusion to his possession of this power. If he performed as he hoped he could, the final step would be up to Motti and Piett—if he survived.

His arms dropped to his sides, convincing the Emperor that he was overcome with the emotion of his failure and the Sith redirected his attention to Motti, striking him again and holding on him. The power that held Jerjerrod in place lessened.

With this act, Jerjerrod knew he would never again be able to be that voice of reason and comfort to the two men who relied upon it. They would be responsible for their own fates, left to fend for themselves in what might be a better future. Tiaan Jerjerrod surrendered his most valuable desire, his only desire, with the knowledge that this would be his last gift to them, and stretched his arm toward the ceiling.

In his mind, he saw every beam and screw, every infinitesimal part that made up this chamber. So neatly welded into place, so strongly held together. His design, his creation, his fault. A colossal undertaking, a greater atrocity.

_Bring it down. Bring it all down._

He existed as a solitary being in a universe of nothing but what was already above his head. Him, the ceiling, and the Force. The task might not be possible; he might not be strong enough, but he was the only one who could try and who dared try. His other hand reached up to join his first and he imagined the entirety of the ceiling fitting between his palms. It was enormous, larger than anything he could reasonably control and there were voices, so many voices warning him to forgo this feat, to find another way. They cautioned him that to even try was to fail before he had begun. He was a novice, a newcomer, too weak. The Force would not feed into him if he could not offer up the same amount of energy in return.

_Turn back. It is too much, too soon for you. You are not ready._

_I know._

He wiped his mind clear, listening only to the echoes of the sounds that had driven him to this: Piett’s exhale as the blaster shot passed through his body, Motti’s incessant, agonizing screaming. Such anguish he felt, hurting with a pain experienced by the two men he had willingly opened his mind and body to. In those sounds, in that pain, he found his courage to pass over the last line before fully committing to the task at hand. 

The supports that held up the twenty-ton slab of metal and concrete above their heads shuddered in place. Stone began to crack, iron bent in on itself, and an awful groan warned of the disaster about to transpire.

The Emperor paid it no heed, so focused on the screaming man before him as Motti seized and then writhed as the currents thrashed through his body and tossed him about like a child’s doll.

Jerjerrod crossed his arms, his grasp firm as his fingers locked around what was not actually in his hands but in his mind. He gave an almighty tug, ripping his arms down through the air and wrenching them apart with a roar that shook half the station, from the nails and divots that made up the basic foundations to the infrastructure and metal casings forming the protective outside layer. He heard the ceiling crumbling as it fell from its place. He heard the bodiless voices in his head cease and the shared feeling of his friends’ pain ebbing away, only to be replaced with the violent rupturing of the network of organs that were keeping him alive.


	9. A Man Without Morals

**ADMIRAL MOTTI**

His uniform was smoking, his insides were still burning as if a series of matches had been lit within him—and he was alive when he knew he ought not to be. What had just occurred to him could not have happened to very many beings, humans least among them, and for him to still be alive to gasp in disbelief at it told him how very fortunate he was. Fortunate that the electricity had been redirected before more damage could be done.

Motti could not remember when it stopped, nor how. He could not recall anything that had happened during or after the irreversible attack on his body, but now that it was over, he knew he had to move. He would take up one of the dead troopers’ blasters and shoot himself in the mouth before he allowed that current of electricity to course through him again and since he did not know how long it would be before the Emperor returned to finish him, he knew he had to find a blaster sooner rather than later.

Then he heard a thud nearby and a gentle, yet wounded pattern of breathing. He could almost recall hearing Jerjerrod roaring with the effort to break free from the Emperor’s hold and wondered if the commander had managed to do so.

From his sprawled position on the floor, Motti turned over to see Jerjerrod on his knees not five feet away, his body small and exhausted at the titanic task he had just completed. Rubble lay around him, coating the floor in a fine layer of dust. The entire chamber was in ruins, but Motti could not understand why or how, unless…

Could it have been the commander? Could the inexperienced man, who had learned just minutes ago that he was of a type of kin with the Sith and Jedi, could he have accomplished such a thing? The only proof that Motti had that it was Jerjerrod who had brought down half the chamber was the wrenching, burrowing scream of anger he had heard through his own wails of agony whilst being electrocuted. When he was certain he was about to die, he had felt a presence latch onto his mind, wrap around it, and reinforce it, urging him to hold on.

That raw power that resonated in the Jedi and the Sith had somehow manifested within an unsuspecting Imperial officer and the first thing he had done with it was to destroy the Emperor’s throne room. Motti didn’t know whether to be impressed or terrified, but seeing as how Jerjerrod didn’t look to be capable of doing much more Force wielding at the moment, Motti deemed it safe enough to approach him—if his body was working well enough to allow him to move at all.

Crawling forward on a tender stomach, he saw that Jerjerrod’s clothing bore more scorches than his own from being subjected to a longer duration of electrocution, but his at least had stopped smoking. His posture was in defeat: arms slack at his sides with knuckles resting on the floor, shoulders hunched over, head hanging forward onto his chest. His breathing was irregular and shallow, labored even. Coming up alongside him, Motti could see that both Jerjerrod’s ears and nostrils were leaking blood. Something had ruptured inside his head to have exerted himself enough to bring down an entire hangar.

Motti grabbed Jerjerrod by the sleeve to let him know that whatever he had done had been enough, that Motti was still alive, but Jerjerrod made no indication that he knew Motti was there. His eyes were lost in a memory, a vision of something that was far more important than the crumbling room around them.

Now furious with his body for not responding to his needs, Motti pushed himself up higher and higher until he was able to bring one knee to his chest, then the other. He straightened and then became level with the commander who had taken no notice of his movements at all, still wandering in whatever hallucination his mind was playing for him.

“Tiaan, can you hear me?”

If he wasn’t already afraid that he was losing his own mind, Motti might have said that he saw sorrowful longing etched into those faraway features but he had no time for any of it. 

“I don’t know what you think you’re seeing, but I need you to _look at me_.” Motti shook Jerjerrod by his lapels and the commander came out of his trance as if severely drugged. His hand touched the fabric of Motti’s collar and some horrible or else overwhelming awareness must have come to him, for he gave a shudder and a great cough before keeling over. Motti struggled to keep him from landing on his face.

Footsteps approached and Motti realized how very vulnerable he was if it was more Imperial Guards or the Emperor himself coming to investigate, but it was only Skywalker and Vader ambling toward them. Motti hated for Vader to see him once again at a lower position as if that was where he belonged, but his disdain for the Sith was put on hold as Skywalker knelt beside the officers to assess the damage done to their person.

“We’re going to have a whole battalion coming after us once they realize you destroyed the Emperor’s chamber, so I need to know if you can walk,” he said to the commander. Jerjerrod looked to be on the verge of fainting at the very idea.

“What about you?” Skywalker asked Motti.

“Possibly,” said Motti, but whether or not he would try depended on if the Sith before him was going to cut him in half when he stood up. “Where’s the Emperor?”

“Back there,” said Skywalker dismissively, pointing beyond the rubble. “Can either of you stand?”

“I…I’m not sure,” breathed Jerjerrod heavily.

Skywalker then put his hand to Jerjerrd’s chest, feeling for something Motti didn’t know, but what the Jedi did find was not good news, for he regarded Motti with grim acquiescence. “What he just did should have killed him. What the Emperor did to him should have killed him, too. He’s bleeding internally. If we can get him to the main docking bay, he might stand a chance, but I feel him fading fast and an entire ship full of Imperial officers and stormtroopers stand between us and that docking bay.”

In short, Skywalker was telling Motti that the Jedi would lead the way to the best of his ability, but that Motti would have to carry his friend. His insides were still burning, his body wracked by the horrible feeling of being charred alive, and he was expected to carry another man that weighed nearly as much as him, if not more.

Meanwhile Vader was standing silent behind Skywalker and though he knew no one would come to his defense this time once he decided to challenge the Sith lord for the third time, Motti had half a retort of revulsion on his tongue before the Sith spoke.

“What are these men to you?”

He was asking Skywalker, and Motti had to admit, Vader had a point. What were Motti and Jerjerrod to the Jedi?

“Allies,” replied Skywalker quickly. “Rebels, and good men. And the reason the rebellion is winning out there, the reason this station will soon be just a floating scrap of metal. If I could save them, I would.”

Vader considered his son, then Jerjerrod, and finally Motti who gave him the most contemptuous turn of his lip he could muster.

“Then your way will be clear. Stop for nothing.”

With a whirl of his cloak, Vader struck off for the elevator which would take him down to the main entry level. From there, it was a straight shot across the Death Star at its widest point to the primary docking bay.

Skywalker grabbed Motti by the underarm and hoisted him upward to where Motti could stand on one foot, then the other. When his strength returned to him, Motti nodded that Skywalker could release him but almost instantly wished he hadn’t, for the Jedi’s grip on him had been firm enough to peel some of the skin off of him underneath his clothes from the severe burns the Emperor’s attack had left on him. He didn’t care to find out just how severe the overall damage was and what exactly his skin looked like beneath his uniform, but the fact that he could stand at all and not be in excruciating pain gave him hope that he wasn’t entirely covered in burns.

“Take one side,” said Skywalker as he wrapped Jerjerrod’s right arm around his neck. Motti bent over and took the left, surprised that he could hold his own weight as well as half of his friend’s. Jerjerrod made a soft moan of protest but otherwise bit back his discomfort as the three of them moved toward the lift like a lopsided six-legged creature.

It was a bit of an uncomfortable squeeze for them having to stand abreast instead of clustered about but they managed it with Skywalker’s hip digging into the controls. They rode down six levels which was where the most direct passage to the bay was. Two more Imperial Royal Guards and four troopers lay about with various saber slashes to their bodies—Vader’s work.

“I’m not sure where to go from here,” said Skywalker, looking both left and right up the corridor.

“Follow the carnage,” Motti suggested.

Vader had indeed cleared the way for them, but only as far as a certain point. It appeared that the Sith had gone off in another direction, perhaps to cause a distraction elsewhere instead of the direct path from the Emperor’s chambers to the bay, but it left quite a few obstacles in their way. Skywalker had had to release Jerjerrod without a second’s notice to dispatch three troopers that rounded the corridor and spotted them. Motti was unprepared to take Jerjerrod’s full weight as Skywalker quite literally threw the commander’s body into his arms and though Jerjerrod tried to help as best he could by hugging his arms around Motti’s mid upper back, the two of them still tumbled sideways into the wall and impacted hard.

“Can you at least warn me before you do something like that?” asked Motti indignantly with his hold on the front of Jerjerrod’s uniform about to fail and his shoulder blades aching from where they had come into contact with the wall. “I can’t catch him like that in my current condition and he can’t afford to be thrown around.”

“If I’d stopped to warn you, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” said Skywalker, hauling Jerjerrod back into the upright position. “The Emperor gave orders to kill on sight in case I made it out of there.”

They came to a blast door that had most unusually been closed off, though the control switch had thankfully been left untouched. Not knowing if a squadron was waiting for them on the other side, Skywalker ordered Motti and Jerjerrod to hug the wall as he ignited his saber and activated the switch. The door slid open diagonally, then vertically and on the other side dripping blood from his hip and wielding two standard blasters and a heavy duty blaster rifle, was Admiral Piett.

“Where in the hell—“ began Motti when Jerjerrod gave what was almost an uncharacteristic laugh of pure relief.

“Thought you’d been hit further in,” said Jerjerrod with a nod at Piett’s uniform which was soaked on one side completely.

“A lucky shot, but luckier for me,” replied Piett, though he looked far paler than usual. “The next three corridors are clear, but I’ve left a trail…” He gestured at the droplets of blood in his wake.

“Do you know how to use that?” Skywalker asked him with a glance at the admiral’s blaster rifle.

“I think the three downed troopers behind me can speak for that.”

“You set your blaster to stun,” Skywalker observed.

“These are still my men. I’ll not murder them for doing what they believe is right if I appear to be the enemy to them,” said Piett proudly. Then, as if just noticing that Jerjerrod had a thin painting of red on his face, his formality turned to concern as he stepped in to take Jerjerrod’s arm from Skywalker. He inquired to Motti as to what had happened.

“If we survive, you’ll be briefed about it later,” said Motti, remembering Vader’s instructions to stop for nothing. “Help me with him.”

Piett offered out one of the blasters to Motti, spoils of the men Piett had indeed downed in the hallway beyond. They stepped over the unconscious bodies but no sooner had they left those fortunate troopers behind that they were brought up short yet again.

“Halt!”

Piett may have nurtured a soft spot for the unsuspecting troopers that now saw their former superior officers as enemies, but Motti held no such regard for them. His weapon was not set to stun and he could appreciate Skywalker’s earlier statement of not having time to think as let go of Jerjerrod to bring the blaster up into both hands and fire. Two rounds left the barrel, both of them settling in the same target and he winced as he saw smoldering innards come leaking out of the mortal wounds his blasts had left in the ill-fated trooper.

Skywalker finished off the second trooper and turned back around to see how Motti was dealing with this latest bit of progression. Motti, however, did not have the conscience Piett had and his first and only direct kill was not something he had time to mull over as he went to where Jerjerrod was on his knees beside Piett who had also let go of him to prepare to fire.

“You…dropped…me,” said Jerjerrod resentfully.

“I am sorry about that,” said Motti, and he meant it. A better system needed to be worked out if they were going to encounter setbacks every twenty meters and he voiced this concern to Skywalker who wholeheartedly agreed with him.

“I can clear the way if I know where I’m going and then come back for him,” he nodded at Jerjerrod.

“We are not leaving him alone in a highly used corridor,” Motti protested. “I’ll stay with him and follow behind as quickly as I can move him on my own.”

“Are you sure you can protect the both of you?”

“No.”

“That doesn’t really inspire confidence.”

“Unless you’re suggesting that _I_ clear the way, this is the best any of us can do. Admiral Piett will see you through on the right path.”

By the looks of Piett, however, this was an undertaking he might not have the endurance for. Moving fast with Skywalker and then back the same way from which he had come on top of the two journeys he had already taken to retrieve weapons and go back to the Emperor’s chamber for help were wearing heavily on him. The alternative was to have him remain behind with Jerjerrod while Motti directed Skywalker and Motti liked both of their chances less if they were left behind together.

“Admiral, do you think you can keep up with me?” asked Skywalker.

Every micro-expression on Piett’s face was giving Skywalker a firm and exhausted _no_ , but the admiral wasn’t looking at Skywalker. His sights were set on Jerjerrod who had slumped onto his side, holding his midsection and wincing with every movement.

“What happened to him?” he asked Motti again.

Pressed for time and on the verge of dismissing his inquiry again, Motti stopped himself. Piett’s ability to push through his own pain depended on whether or not he got an answer and the severity of that answer. Motti had kept him in the dark about one too many things but for this, Piett would not stand for obliviousness.

This had been their last conversation; how Motti had refused to let Piett in, how he had lost his trust in the man who had been his friend. That distrust was gone, but Motti had given Piett up for dead when he saw the Stormtrooper shoot him and to have him back now, it reminded Motti that the other admiral cared for Jerjerrod just as deeply.

Skywalker took Motti’s silence for consent to reveal what had occurred after Piett had taken his fall down the staircase and he gave the admiral the short version in explaining that Jerjerrod was most likely bleeding internally from an enormous amount of strain. The excessive blood on the commander’s face gave substantial evidence to that claim.

In a battle of his own will against the greatest need, Piett weighed his options. Both he and Motti knew that of the two of them, Motti was in better condition to lead Skywalker but that leaving Piett alone to guard Jerjerrod was almost guaranteeing that neither of them would survive to reach the hangar. Piett still had a moral code where Motti didn’t and Motti wouldn’t hesitate to kill if pushed to desperation. There was no preferable situation, but Motti would leave the choice up to the man who had had the more difficult ask.

Handing Motti the last of the three blasters, he helped prop Jerjerrod up against the wall and snapped his fingers in front of the commander’s face. Only then did Motti notice the admiral had removed his gloves, as his had been soaked through with blood and now his hands were also stained red.

In much too delayed of a reaction for Motti’s liking, Jerjerrod blinked once, twice, and tried to sit up taller in a brave attempt at convincing Piett he wasn’t as bad off as he actually was.

“Stay with him,” said Piett to Motti.

“And you stay right with me, Admiral,” said Skywalker. “We’ll be back.”

They were not gone twenty seconds when Motti looped his blaster strap across one shoulder, secured the second blaster to Jerjerrod, and began to drag the commander by the arms. In the impeccably polished floor, he could see his own flushed reflection struggling to pull his friend along, fighting for every step. Motti had energy to spend, but the fact of the matter was that he was not in peak physical condition. He was at the weakest he had ever been, underfed, fatigued, mentally unsound and physically uncoordinated not to mention charred from his time in the Emperor’s chamber and winded from screaming his lungs out. If he had been the man he had been when he first came aboard this vessel, he would have found no problem in carrying Jerjerrod across his shoulders but he was less than half of that man now and that man was about to give up fifty paces into this endeavor.

Jerjerrod’s head lolled back to gaze at Motti upside down and though Motti was almost positive that the commander was hallucinating at this point, it helped to have an audience, as it made Motti resolve to keep going. They came to another set of blast doors and an empty corridor, and another, and another, and then one with two unconscious bodies and four dead ones. Wending his way through the bodies with Jerjerrod still in tow, Motti held his breath, as the stench of open flesh was not sitting exceptionally well with him.

He stopped counting corridors, focusing instead on keeping his course on track and listening for any sounds other than his scraping footfalls and heavy breathing. It seemed that nearly every other hallway yielded bodies and that there was no more obvious of a trail for entire squadrons to follow, but he convinced himself that making progress, however slow, behind Skywalker and Piett was the right thing to do.

They came to another stretch of corridor with four bodies, all of them dead by rebounded blaster shots and Motti saw that the blast door ahead had been closed off but heard movement from the other side. He dropped Jerjerrod’s arms, sank onto one knee in front of the commander, and lifted his blaster into ready position, hoping that however many troopers were about to come through, that it was enough for him to handle on his own.

Fate decided to offer him a kindness and sent only two, though he only succeeded in killing them both because the first knocked backward into the other when Motti put a hole through his helmet. Blessing his luck, Motti resumed his slow march but only got as far as the next blast door which he found to be jammed from his side.

Taking mental stock of his location and how long it would take him to go around, he concluded that it was time he could only afford to spend if he was traveling fast and alone. The entire reason for sending Piett on ahead with the Jedi was to provide Jerjerrod with the best security possible with their available options and now Motti was faced with the dilemma of leaving Jerjerrod exposed here or hoping that the detour was as forgiving as the initial path had been. But what if Skywalker and Piett came back for them only to find Motti gone? What if Motti made it to the other side of the blast door and it was also jammed from that side? The longer he spent contemplating his choices, the less time they all had and then it would be a matter of seeing which met their end first: Jerjerrod or Jerjerrod and the entire occupancy of the Death Star.

“If…if you help sit me up…” said Jerjerrod, lifting his hand for Motti to grasp. Motti dragged him against the corner, wedging him in as far as he could go to provide him with as much cover as possible for anyone rounding the corner. He had not entirely decided that he was going to venture down the detour without the commander, but Jerjerrod gave him the blessing to do so anyway. “You should go…and…and if you decide to keep going and not…not come back—“

“You shut up,” Motti interjected. “Shut up with that nonsense.”

“You have every right—“

“Would I do that?”

It was an honest question and one Motti wanted to know Jerjerrod’s opinion of. Maybe before, maybe at a different point and time Motti might have considered leaving Jerjerrod to abandon ship and ensure his own survival. Hell, Motti might even have believed himself capable of such a thing before walking into that last Joint Chiefs briefing, but the fact of the matter was that he could not see himself surviving any of this on his own. It had not even occurred to him that he might have to leave this station without Jerjerrod or that the day might end in tragedy. His mind refused to accept it, accept a future without the commander. He relied too heavily on the bleeding man in front of him, and he knew the Force could explain that to Jerjerrod better than Motti ever could.

He asked again, “Would I do that?”

Jerjerrod’s face split into an asymmetrical grin. “No, I don’t believe you would.”

Motti positioned Jerjerrod’s hands on his blaster and made sure the weapon was live. “Shoot anyone who comes through this door or around that corner who isn’t me,” he instructed.

“Right.”

Jerjerrod’s chin came to rest on his chest and Motti set him back up, anchoring his hands on either side of the underside of the commander’s jaw. “I’m coming right back.”

“I know.”

He would curse himself every day for the rest of his life or every second of it if he didn’t make it past today for what he was about to do, but it would do no good to prolong the wait. Motti doubled back and took a side entrance, sprinting down another hallway with his weapon held at waist height in preparation for any encounter. He was blessed to come into contact with no one as he took the first left that would lead him around the blocked blast door. 

All officers within a certain age range were required to pass a physicality test but Motti had managed to bypass the last few annual tests and was now suffering dearly for it. He had not run in more years than he cared to count and certainly never when wounded and ill but he was doing quite well for himself, considering his physical state. His lungs hated him and his legs were ready to stop working on him out of spite but he held together long enough to round the corner.

And come face to face with an officer. They both drew on each other, but neither fired. Motti knew the man by face, but not by name, and he knew that this man—along with every soul aboard the station—had been briefed on his defection. He had met with this communications officer many times to relay reports via hologram to Vader but had never had a conversation with the man outside of duty hours.

Taking the officer’s hesitation to shoot as a good sign, Motti began cautiously, “I need to get by. Imagine that you found this corridor empty and be on your way. Find an escape pod and evacuate while you still have time.”

“Orders are to maintain course and wait for the Emperor’s command to blow up the forest moon. The rebels—“

“Will have deactivated the shield generator and penetrated the outer defenses by now. I am giving you a chance to run, if you would grant me the same courtesy.”

“You know I can’t do that, Admiral. If the Emperor discovered—“

“I can almost guarantee the Emperor is dead or dying, Officer. How do you suppose I’m still alive, and walking around armed, no less? This is your last chance; let me through, or you’ll leave me no choice.”

He knew what would happen before he had ever begun talking, but he had hoped that the officer cared more for his own life than his duty. Apparently not.

Motti felt a solid punch to the gut from the blast of the officer’s weapon. As he fell, Motti held down his blaster trigger and sprayed the officer with white-hot energy beams. Once again, Motti found smoke rising from his uniform, but there was only a very large burn on the front of the material and an equally massive bruise forming underneath. The officer’s weapon had malfunctioned and delivered not even a tenth of the intended energy. Not enough to stun him, but more than enough to lay him flat and gasping from the powerful punch it packed.

_Get up_ , he told himself. Cradling his ribs, he came onto one knee to look upon his kill, though there was no victory in it. The officer had been a fool, but a devoted fool and by the looks of a weapon supply closet to the right, a useful devoted fool—even if it was only in death.

Motti dragged the officer’s corpse to the closet panel and with some difficulty, laid the dead man’s hand upon the activation pad that would give him access to the weapons within. His own hand scan would have yielded no results, as he was positive that his DNA would be stricken and denied from the system.

The closet door opened to admit him and a quick once-over revealed what he had hoped to find. It wasn’t the brightest idea to wield a weapon capable of such destruction, but the tenderness in his stomach suggested that he might need more reliable backup than a standard blaster. The proton missile launcher would be put to good use in clearing (as well as completely decimating) a hallway, but with neither his nor Jerjerrod’s aim as qualified for blaster shooting as a Stormtrooper’s, he had to take an advantage where he could get it.

There was no time to stuff the officer’s body in the closet and so he left the hall conspicuously covered in blood as he continued on. His rogue encounter proved to be the only one on his journey and he wondered if Vader was responsible for that good fortune. Another quick set of mental calculations told him that one more forward corridor and then an immediate left would bring him out just beyond the jammed blast door but his pulse quickened past the point of an already racing heartbeat as his mind went to the worst possible place in anticipation of what he might find.

He found that the blast door had been safety locked from the other side, though not intentionally. It looked as if Piett and Skywalker had closed it behind them, had a band of troopers come in halfway down the corridor, and the troopers had attempted to open it when confronted with the Jedi but had missed the “open” button and instead locked it. Motti drew this conclusion by the trooper arm still extended to activate the control pad with the rest of the trooper on the floor.

Disabling the safety lock, he stepped back as it opened, half expecting a swarm of troopers to rush him. A shot went off close to his head and he instinctively dropped to his stomach but only saw Jerjerrod exactly where Motti had left him looking almost sheepish as the barrel of his blaster smoked.

Fuming, Motti sat up on his elbow with a glare. “I said ‘anyone who isn’t me’. Do I not look like myself?”

“Sorry,” said Jerjerrod feebly. “I can’t…I can’t see very well.”

“That’s a pathetic excuse.”

Motti pulled the commander out of the corner and resumed the position of dragging him forward. Enough time had passed that he felt that surely, Skywalker and Piett would be returning for them, but he could take no chances if Jerjerrod’s eyesight was already beginning to fail him. As each minute passed without trooper interference and as he managed to haul Jerjerrod through one passageway after the next, Motti started to consider the probability that his strength was coming from a foreign source and not just his own determination. He had a shrewd suspicion that he was being fed this extra vigor from the man who could afford to lose no more and was about to tell him off for doing this unproven act when he heard voices ahead.

He set Jerjerrod down, moved his blaster aside in favor of the proton missile launcher, and prepared to let loose, but the voices did not seem to be coming any closer. Then, with a quick intake of his surroundings, he came to the realization that he was about to come out on the secondary command deck that overlooked the main docking bay. It was an open center with a walkway cutting straight through the middle of it to allow foot traffic from Motti’s corridor to the one beyond.

How far he had come all on his own, lugging another man the entire way. He couldn’t help but take an enormous sense of accomplishment in that feat and privately, half-wanted to see what the Emperor would have thought of it all. Him, the man who had been condemned to die by first friendly strangulation and then electricity, had made it this far with no help and no outside powers (apart from what he still believed to be borrowed strength). Stopping himself before he could engage in a premature celebration, Motti ambled forward in preparation to shoot. It had cost him the last time he hesitated and gave the opposing officer a choice; this time, he would not give pause for anything.

Straight out from around the corner he walked, setting his sights on the eight men gathered at their various stations, directing ships out to join the battle over the Death Star. None of them heard Motti’s approach and so none of them would see him fire. He knew he should be experiencing some sort of remorse for what he was about to do, but there were so few lives he could care about now that he could spare no room regretting the deaths of others, even if they were his men. He decided he wouldn’t tell Piett about this, if they were ever in a position to have another conversation.

He aimed for the floor between the two halves of the station; a misjudged shot would collide with the other side of the docking bay and alert every officer and trooper in the vicinity that he was there. Of course, once he fired, everyone would know he was here anyway, but that was a risk he had to take to get through this barrier.

The missile left its bed and exploded on impact, blasting apart limbs and bits of the various compartments that made up each station. Motti went back for Jerjerrod and continued on, but as he had suspected, this secondary command center was where he would have to make his stand, for he found the corridor beyond blocked with incoming troopers. He half-dropped Jerjerrod behind one of the desks and fired a second missile that cleaned the slate of troopers, but more would be sure to come.

He tried to squeeze his body into the tight space beside Jerjerrod to give the shooting troopers less of a target but the bulk of the desk had been blown in half with the explosion and so it was a very uncomfortable fit, indeed. 

“I think we’ll just rest here a while,” he told Jerjerrod, not to make light of the situation, but to keep the commander vigilant. 

Jerjerrod’s head flopped about unsteadily and Motti nudged him in the ribs.

“If you won’t quit that, I’ll hit you to keep you alert.”

“Conan, I need you to know…that I’m—I am so…so very deeply sorry…”

Blaster fire took off a chunk of the desk next to Motti’s ear and he covered his head with his arms until the volley had passed. He pushed Jerjerrod lower to keep him out of range.

“You’ve nothing to apologize for anymore.”

“I had hoped for better…for you.”

“What in the hell does that mean?”

The back of Jerjerrod’s head smacked against the desk as he dug his skull in to try and stay focused. “Something better,” he told Motti. “Something far better…”

In the process of deciphering Jerjerrod’s cryptic message, Motti had to completely flatten himself on the floor as a heavy blaster removed another hunk of his coverage. Sticking the missile launcher straight up and hoping his aim was accurate enough, Motti let off his third round, heard the impact, and then stood up to return fire.

The missile had exploded just to the left of the amassing troopers and killed just two of the near dozen of them. Motti thought to say something worthy of a rousing battle cry but instead, all he heard himself say was, “Shit.”

The troopers saw their former admiral standing with the intent to kill and like the officer Motti had encountered earlier, they faltered, just long enough for two shots to take out one and down another. Then, a ruckus from behind made the troopers whirl around to face what seemed to be the more pressing and dangerous enemy. Through the haze of blaster fire and residual smoke, Motti caught a glimpse of green.

Skywalker had returned for them and Motti had never been so pleased to see him (and hoped he was never this happy to see him again). He lowered his blaster to see Jerjerrod on his knees, using the last bit of control desk to lean across with both hands positioned to fire on his own blaster.

“I thought you couldn’t see that far,” said Motti.

“I can’t,” said Jerjerrod, letting his cheek rest against the charred desk. “I just hoped…it was in the right direction.”

Piett cleared the smoke first and was severely limping now, but Motti didn’t find this surprising in the least. Still, the admiral managed a weak semi-grin of relief at the sight of Motti and Jerjerrod still alive, if not altogether whole.

Skywalker passed Piett easily as he jogged over to greet Moti. “How did you make it this far?” he shouted over the exchange of blaster fire, and Motti was delighted to hear that the Jedi was impressed, even if the latter gave him no opportunity to respond. “The docking bay is clear now, but it might not be in a few minutes after your stint with the missile launcher, so we’re going to have to run for it. It’s across this catwalk, through a corridor, down a flight and a half of stairs, and back across the hangar in the opposite direction. Stay right behind me.”

The Jedi made to lead the way but reached back over Motti’s shoulder with his saber and blocked a shot from the hallway behind.

“Take him, go!” shouted Piett, taking up position behind the last salvageable bit of the control station and chancing a look to see how many troopers they were up against this time.

Skywalker and Motti each lifted Jerjerrod and hurried down the catwalk as Piett covered their escape. Once they were safely across and taking refuge among the pile of dead troopers, Motti saw Piett cowering behind his temporary shield.

“You have to run!” Motti called.

Piett did not have it in him; had given too much already. He knew that was the only option left to him, but a small part of him had been hoping that Motti had a better solution. With a wrenching scream that sounded part war cry, part agonizing sob for help, Piett ducked his head and ran flat-out to them, diving the last few feet as Motti provided cover fire for him.

Motti allowed him ten full seconds of respite before he prodded him with the end of his blaster to get him moving, for they were too exposed on this catwalk. “We’re not there yet.”

“I…I can’t,” Piett breathed.

“Tell me now if you need me to carry you and I will.”

Piett’s expression told Motti that he found the joke to be ill-timed, but Motti had never been more serious. Inwardly, he knew he would make it all of half a meter before he collapsed, but he would have to try nonetheless.

“ _You_ can’t,” said Piett.

“I can,” said Skywalker. “Admiral Motti, do you have the commander?”

Motti gave an internal moan and borderline delirious giggle. No, he didn’t have the commander. His injuries were beginning to stockpile and weigh him down. He could maybe, just maybe, drag Jerjerrod, but there was no way in any heaven or hell that he could carry the man. He had offered to carry Piett because he was the smaller of the two, but Skywalker was not as largely built as Motti and would not be able to support Jerjerrod, which was why he chose Piett.

“I can walk,” said Piett after watching Motti’s face fall at the suggestion that he bear another man’s weight. “Just…just help me stand.”

Doubtful, Skywalker took the back of Piett’s uniform to help him to his feet.

The floor beneath them trembled and Skywalker gave a warning shout to jump. Motti might have laughed, definitely cursed, but pushed Piett on ahead over the railing and locked his arms around Jerjerrod’s torso. The floor disappeared from under them and Motti felt himself free falling…

Impact was hard and disturbingly audible as his left leg hit the ground first with a sickening crunch. Then Jerjerrod’s weight collided with his already bruised stomach. The pain in his leg was only second to that in his stomach but third in comparison to his groin, an area that had taken a severe beating when they had fallen and which had acted as a cushion for Jerjerrod to land on. By no fault of his own, Jerjerrod had come to a rest with his elbow in Motti’s crotch and now Motti was blinking away stars as his head spun. He had taken many hits to this particular area in his youth but it had been some time since a blow of this severity had occurred and it was almost enough to make him want to vomit.

Motti pushed Jerjerrod away from him just enough to have better access to his injured muscle. On his side, clutching at his nether regions with the utmost delicacy, he felt a tremor in the station, building from below and growing larger as it made its way upward. Then the corridor from whence they had come let out a billowing cloud as a cabin depressurization led to a steam explosion and various gas leaks. A series of electrical fires sprouted up from where they had been standing on the now broken scaffolding.

Motti attempted to stand, only to find that what he initially thought to be a sprain was a conclusive break. He turned himself over to examine his outer calf and the white marrow of his bone protruded from under the fabric of his left pant leg. All at once, the ache in his groin receded.

Piett had made it to his feet and was limping toward him using his rifle for support, but Skywalker got to him first.

“Anything broken?” asked the Jedi.

“I wonder…” snapped Motti with an obvious nod at his leg.

A groan from above alerted them to the rest of the scaffolding about to fall away. Skywalker took hold of Piett’s arm and pulled insistently at him but Motti knew he would not be able to move aside in time, for the platform above was descending toward him at an alarming rate. He swung his legs around despite one being broken and pulled himself onto Jerjerrod, shielding as much of the commander’s body with his own as he could while snaking one arm up to cover his head. 

The ceiling rained debris down on them and the pain in Motti’s leg grew distant, almost detached as he felt the air draw close and clogged around his shielded face. He tried not to inhale dust but there was nothing else to breathe in. His world thundered and pounded for eons until his very ribs vibrated and he could feel the mechanical pulse of the station beating against him. Quite suddenly it stopped, leaving nothing but an ominous quietness behind. 


	10. Oblivion

**ADMIRAL MOTTI**

Popping open one eye, he could only see darkness and wondered if he had died and hardly even noticed when what lights hadn’t gone out in the hangar reached him through a gap in the rubble. Piett’s face appeared.

“Are you alright?” he asked urgently.

Motti couldn’t form proper sentences at the moment and didn’t think any rational words would come out either, so he had to make do with an unintelligible grunt that was a cross between “no” and “I don’t know”, though that was being generous with classifying the sound that came out of his throat.

He feared to move about and cause something else to collapse in on him, but even with his body flattened on top of Jerjerrod’s in a protective cocoon, he couldn’t tell if the other man was breathing. Fumbling about in the darkness, he managed to free one hand, locate the side of Jerjerrod’s face, and slap him. He received a throaty cough as an answer and would have breathed a sigh of relief if he wasn’t afraid of inhaling more dust.

“They’re here,” Piett called to someone behind him after he too had heard the cough and bits of the wreckage were shifted about to pull Motti and Jerjerrod free. As more and more light streamed in on them and Motti was able to see properly, he tried to roll off of Jerjerrod but felt incredibly lopsided as well as cemented in place. It took several more precious minutes of clearing the way for Motti to crane his neck around and see why he was stuck crouched in this protective posture to combat a now nonexistent danger.

An entire chunk of the platform weighing on a wager close to half that of a fighter ship had found its mark on the floor, directly on top of Motti’s lower left half. Motti had to blink several times to take in the appearance of what had formerly been a working leg to see the smashed, jumbled mess it was now. What little structure remained was a gory sight: the bone, muscle, and all interior human workings were imperceptible from one another. If there was pain to be felt, he was too far along into shock already to feel it. Or maybe it just hadn’t caught up to him yet. Skywalker’s attempts to move the debris off of him caused him to release a quite inhuman howl, telling him that he was still very much capable of experiencing pain.

So lost in his own head was he in wonder of how an entire limb could have been smashed without him noticing that he wasn’t aware of the scaffolding rising up seemingly on its own until it was thrown aside. Then Skywalker was next to him, pulling him off of Jerjerrod who was remarkably unscathed, thanks to Motti.

“We have to move!”

_Move_. That definitely wasn’t happening when Motti’s leg resembled the squashed sort of mess of unidentifiable parts he had seen once inside a garbage compactor.

“Admiral, I know the pain’s unbearable right now, but you have to help me out, I can’t do it on my own.”

Was it? Was it unbearable, or was Motti on his way out to the point where he wouldn’t even feel it as he slipped away into the unknown? Did he not even know that he was dying?

Skywalker joined his hands across Motti’s midsection and began to lift him, but it was with that small movement his body realized it was supposed to be hurting and supplied him with a belated dosage that was well on its way to reaching full potential by the time Skywalker had taken three steps backward with Motti.

“No, wait, stop,” Motti pleaded. “ _Stop it_!”

He held the remnants of his leg as if that could somehow combat the inevitable but Skywalker had lost his patience and hollered in Motti’s ear, “Put your arm around my neck, Admiral, or I’ll knock you out cold and drag you along behind me.”

There was never an opportunity for Motti to comply, for laser fire erupted above them and Skywalker released him to deflect the blasts with his saber. The Jedi ran from Motti to draw the fire away from him but Motti realized he was still being dragged backward and saw that a black leather glove was pulling on the shoulder padding of his uniform. Gliding along without being able to see his destination, he did see that he still had a vice-like hold on Jerjerrod’s wrist and that the commander was drifting in and out of consciousness as he was pulled through a significant trail of blood coming from Motti’s leg.

Then, whoever it was that had a hold on Motti came to a halt and Motti heard machine-assisted breathing. He tilted his head back and saw an upside down view of Lord Vader’s mask turned down on him. Behind the Sith was a transport and this was obviously where Vader was dragging him to, but he had stopped because the combined weight of both Motti and Jerjerrod was too much for a wounded man to carry, even with the Force’s assistance.

“Let go of him,” Vader told Motti.

“No,” said Motti stoutly. It would take more than a Sith to break his grip. As Motti was now incapable of hauling Jerjerrod to safety on his own, he relied entirely on his grip to keep the commander within reach and refused to let the latter leave his sight.

“Let _go_ , Admiral,” the Sith warned.

But when Motti declined yet again, the Sith took a rough hold of the front of his uniform dangerously close to his neck and lifted him into what would have been a standing position if Motti’s boots had been able to touch the floor. He kept his hold on Jerjerrod even with the Sith holding him in such a precarious position. In his mind, he knew Vader would not attempt to strangle him again—such times were past—but his body would not accept that fact and was working against him. His sweat ran cold, his breath hitched, his pulse set a galloping pace, and he swallowed with some difficulty.

“I will break every bone in your hand, Admiral. Release the commander.”

Motti didn’t trust himself to speak. He could only shake his head vigorously.

Vader dropped him on his good leg, wrenched his arm closer, and began to dig his gloved fingers underneath Motti’s to pry them off of Jerjerrod. Motti tried to curse the Sith, but words wouldn’t come. For the first time, he opened his mind, hoping that Vader would hear his reason for not letting go and sympathize, but Sith were still, apparently, in short supply of compassion. One of Motti’s fingers might indeed have broken as Vader twisted his hand free. Securing his hold on Motti’s upper uniform, Vader resumed towing him toward the shuttle.

Skywalker had the entire bay’s attention on him, too far to be of any use. Jerjerrod lay completely exposed and unguarded and Motti could not reach him. It drove him mad past the point of reason. Both Jerjerrod and Piett had put him first in nearly everything against his will and at risk to themselves and now once again he was being catered to first while one of his friends was dying just feet away and the other was unaccounted for. Both his strength and his voice simultaneously returned to him.

“Let go,” he snarled at Vader, swatting at the Sith’s hand. “Let go of me!” The Sith paid him no heed, but this only infuriated him further. “Damn you, let go of me!”

His face was awash with sweat and what might have been tears for any number of reasons, least of them the mounting pain in his leg. What a pathetic sight he must look to this lord of evil, as weak and predictable and inexperienced as Vader had always taunted him for. He didn’t care, didn’t give a shit what Vader thought of him now.

The next and last resort would be to bite the Sith’s hand, but given that it was most likely mechanical, Motti supposed he would only reward himself with several broken teeth if he tried. They were nearly to the boarding ramp now and Motti dug his good heel into the scuffed floor for all the good it did.

From the other side of the rubble came Piett, still limping, still armed, and nursing what might have been a sprained or broken elbow but the admiral knelt beside Jerjerrod to take up a defensive position over him. He nodded to Motti as a promise that he would remain with the commander until help came back for them.

Now with less of Motti’s resistance rather than more of his cooperation, Vader mounted the boarding ramp that led up into what Motti recognized as the Sith’s own shuttle. The ramp’s incline was nearly Motti’s undoing since even his good leg couldn’t manage it without Vader taking his full weight for a few moments. The short walk to the cockpit only took what felt like hours to reach and Vader deposited Motti in the starboard passenger seat and disappeared back out the way he had come without so much as a word to him.

Bristling at being left alone in the cockpit without any means to see what was going on outside the shuttle, Motti had half a mind to call the Sith one of his choicest swearwords but just then, Skywalker and Piett stumbled in completely carrying Jerjerrod who no longer had any use of his legs. As he was placed in the seat beside Motti and strapped in, Jerjerrod made the nonchalant and slightly dazed comment of, “It’s so…bright.” 

Motti glanced around at the dimness of the cockpit. Displacement from reality was a sure sign of not only shock, but shutting down and he felt for Jerjerrod’s pulse, finding a weak thump’s cadence against his fingers.

Skywalker took the medical kit from under Motti’s seat, and unveiled a small bronze vial with a syringe attached to it.

“Commander Jerjerrod needs that more than I do,” Motti protested, blocking Skywalker from applying it.

“But I need you alert more than I need him,” said Skywalker, and stabbed Motti in the injured thigh with it, but the overpowering pain of having his bones crushed made Motti immune to the needle piercing his skin.

“That’ll keep you awake, even if it only makes a dent in the pain.”

“Wonderful.”

“Admiral Piett, prepare for takeoff,” Skywalker instructed and then he was gone, back out to the boarding ramp. Wondering what in the worlds the Jedi could possibly need to do outside of the ship when the entire station was in danger of exploding at any second, Motti tried to lift himself high enough out of his seat to get a proper vantage point of the bay but his leg would not have it.

“Where’s he gone?” he asked no one in particular.

“Vader,” said Piett, inputting takeoff coordinates on the panel beside Motti with one hand. Up close, Motti saw that his elbow had been dislocated.

The shuttle shook with the station’s movement and Piett consulted a digital readout on the dashboard, checking the time and no doubt comparing it to how long it had been since they had stood in the Emperor’s chambers.

Motti wished that the shuttle was equipped with a voice projecting feature to give a call to Skywalker and tell him that this was not the time to abandon ship, but to abandon station. It came to his attention that if the Jedi did not return within the next few moments, he and Piett would have to man the controls themselves and Motti had not commandeered a ship in over a decade, so he did not care for their chances unless Piett happened to be an expert pilot.

“Everyone buckle in, takeoff won’t be easy,” said Skywalker so suddenly that Motti reached for the blaster still strung about his shoulder. The Jedi slid into the pilot’s seat and Motti stored his blaster in a hanging compartment beside him before getting a proper look at the rebel commander. His face was blotchy and his eyes rather watery but as he took up his position, the pilot instinct overcame whatever conflict there was within him. None of them were tactless enough to ask about the Jedi’s father; they already knew.

“I’ll need a co-pilot. Tell me at least one of you has logged some shuttle hours.”

Piett dropped into the seat beside Skywalker without question and set about to prepping the ship. 

“How many hours’ experience do you have in one of these, Admiral?” asked Skywalker.

“Enough.”

“But how long ago did you last put them to use?”

“Do you really want to know the answer to that question?” Piett snapped. His wound dripped blood onto the floor beside him and he winced with every movement, but of the three of them, he was in the best shape to assist Skywalker and that was saying quite a lot with the amount of damage the three of them had sustained. He worked fast despite having only one available hand but Skywalker stopped him.

“I can fix that, but it’ll be painful.”

“Everything is painful at the moment,” said Piett through gritted teeth.

Skywalker located the disruption at Piett’s elbow and positioned it to pop it back into place. Piett grasped the reverse throttle and Skywalker’s prompting, yanked it down at the same time that his elbow rejoined its proper ligaments. He never made more than an intense growl.

“Takeoff sequence initiated,” he said when Skywalker had finished.

The station gave another violent shudder as their wings extended for takeoff and the ship began to drift backwards out of the docking bay. Motti watched a corridor explode in flames, saw troopers scrambling for emergency transports, and knew a strange sadness in leaving this place that had been his home for years. He had lived aboard a Death Star for the better part of a decade and before that, on various Star Destroyers, and yet he still experienced a hollow sensation in his chest at the prospect of knowing that within minutes, the room that had been his, the bed that had been his, would be gone. His home was about to be obliterated and there was nowhere else he could call the same. In a few moments, he would be homeless and in more than one sense, an orphan. The Death Star would be destroyed, the Empire would fall, the Imperial Fleet would be disbanded and Motti would be left with—what?

If Skywalker wasn’t as good of a pilot as Motti was led to believe, Motti wouldn’t have long to worry about his life sans-Empire.

“Deflector shields up,” said Skywalker. “We’re about to head straight into the thick of things.”

“You’re heading _into_ battle in a shuttle equipped for transport and not dog fighting?” asked Piett.

“That’s the plan. There’s no other option except to rendezvous with the Rebel Alliance.”

“Take us directly to your medical frigate,” said Motti.

“That’s if your men haven’t destroyed it yet.”

“A man is dying for your precious rebellion, Jedi, take us to the medical frigate or take us to someone who can help him or—“ Motti cut off here, holding a hand to both his stomach and his leg, as he could not decide which was more bothered by the raising of his voice. He could feel the effects of the pain reliever setting in just slightly, but his irritation at how his body had ultimately failed him in recent hours made him immune to the side-effects or rolling around in his seat wailing. He was far too angry to let his body prevent him from having some sort of handle on the situation.

“Steady back there, Admiral,” said Piett in a reminder that Skywalker was in charge of the ship and not Motti.

“Didn’t you hear me before?” asked Skywalker. “It’s a wonder that he’s still alive at all, which he definitely shouldn’t be and you’re a close second with the amount of electrocution both of you took. Even if the medical ship is still intact enough to take passengers, he’s not going to make it, which makes you the next priority.”

“I’ll decide whether or not I’m a priority. Locate—the—goddamned—ship!”

Calmly, so infuriatingly calmly, Skywalker looked over his shoulder and said in what Motti recognized as a pitying tone, “You should say your goodbyes now.”

As if on cue, Jerjerrod made a faint noise but Motti held up a finger to hush him. “Not now and not today. Both of you listen to me.” He saw Jerjerrod watching him through a film that had settled over his eyes. “If this Force of yours is in him, then it should protect him long enough to get him the assistance he needs. You need to do your part, Skywalker, and fly us to where we need to go or I’ll take the controls from you and do it myself.”

“The Force is with him,” Skywalker confirmed. “But he never learned to use it. It can’t save him. If you were attuned to it as I am, you would be able to feel that his insides took a brutal beating that he can’t recover from. The combination of the electrocution and his inability to harness his power ruptured him beyond repair. He’s going to die, Admiral, and you need to accept that and tell him goodbye while you still can.”

Seething and obstinately refusing to accept Skywalker’s observation, Motti reached for his blaster when Piett revolved fully around and snatched the weapon straight out of Motti’s reach.

“Listen to him. Listen for once, you fool, and don’t just hear someone talking to you.”

Motti heard Jerjerrod once again make a feeble, nearly inaudible sound and this time he reached over to tighten the strap across Jerjerrod’s chest to keep him upright in his seat. He snapped his fingers in front of Jerjerrod’s eyes and when that appeared to not rouse him in the slightest, Motti delivered another harsh slap.

“Stay alert, Commander.”

The monumental effort involved in Jerjerrod lifting his eyes to find Motti’s gaze smacked a blow of reality to Motti’s heart. What had once been striking blue eyes were now almost grey and as if the blood leaking out wherever it could find the space wasn’t enough to seal that realization, there were silent, unconscious tears streaming down Jerjerrod’s face. He might not have been aware of them as he waited for Motti to say something else, something to give him a stronger grasp on his will to survive.

“TIE fighters might let us through if they think Vader’s commanding it, but once they figure out we’re not him, we’re gonna be caught in a crossfire,” said Skywalker. “Admiral, get on the com, relay this code to all rebel fighters that there are friendlies aboard this ship and to let us pass…”

Piett took the com system headset from the co-pilot dock and placed it to his ears. Skywalker found the rebel fleet frequency and spewed out a series of instructions that Piett recited. “All wings, be advised, T-4a shuttle designation _ST-321_ has allied passengers aboard, hold your fire. I repeat, all wings, be advised…”

“Hang on back there, this is gonna get rough,” said Skywalker as they broke into the battlefield. Gunfire rained down on them, but their deflector shield held—for the moment. Almost immediately, Skywalker was forced to put the ship into a barrel roll maneuver and Motti threw out his arm to keep Jerjerrod’s neck from jerking wildly to the left. The roll-over sent Motti’s already delicate stomach into a frenzy and he closed his eyes in the hopes that it would alleviate some of the nausea. When Skywalker righted the ship, it came to initial position with such a violent lurch that Motti emptied the contents of his stomach on the floor between his knees and the back of Piett’s seat.

Skywalker took his eyes off of the battle to watch Motti wipe a trickle of vomit away from his lip with his sleeve and there was a small hint of repugnance to be seen there, or maybe more pity. He could keep both, for all Motti cared.

Motti inhaled, but was unable to take a deep breath, let alone a normal breath. He tried to open his lungs to being more receptive to the oxygen in the ship’s closed quarters, but the act made the ship spin as if Skywalker had put them into another roll-over.

“ST-321 _, this is Red Leader, we have you on our scopes. Confirm designated code, or we will be forced to open fire.”_

Piett gave the code that Skywalker offered, followed by a report that betrayed the first bit of emotion in Piett’s voice that Motti had heard since leaving the Death Star’s docking bay.

“We have two critically wounded aboard, in need of immediate medical attention.” Here he chanced a look at Jerjerrod to assess his condition before continuing, “Our course is set for the medical frigate.”

After an extremely tense moment in which Motti feared the code may have changed and they were shit out of luck on both ends, there came the sound of a much more gravelly voice.

“ST-321 _, this is Admiral Ackbar, proceed to your destination, EF76 Nebulon-B_ Redemption _. We will give you an escort in. Alert the medical crew of the condition of your passengers.”_

“Heads up, Admiral, here they come again,” warned Skywalker, and Piett ripped off his com link headset to concentrate on the aft guns. 

“Alert the medical crew,” he said over his shoulder to Motti.

Letting the natural movement of the ship bring the swinging wire toward him, Motti put the headset on. “ _Redemption,_ this is _ST-321_. We are inbound with three critically wounded aboard. Do you copy?”

He received static from the other end but then the latter part of a response. “…of the wounded?”

“I don’t copy, _Redemption,_ say again?”

“Pull up!” hollered Piett as a phalanx formation of TIE-fighters concurrently fired at their shuttle. Their craft was not a fighter ship meant for banking and maneuvering and so as Skywalker cut hard left and took a dive, Motti gave a shout of terror into the com link at the oncoming Imperial fighters. It was one thing to stand on the command deck of a Star Destroyer as snub ships fired uselessly against its great bulk, but to be in the cockpit of a shuttle actively engaged in a skirmish was quite another and Motti knew which one he preferred.

“ _This is_ Redemption, _we copy. What is the condition of the wounded?”_ said a voice in his ear.

“Blaster wound, smashed leg, internal bleeding with two heading into neurogenic shock,” said Motti, realizing that he was only still responsive thanks to Skywalker’s adrenaline shot, but that the combined symptoms of nausea, dizziness, and shortness of breath were more than enough to place him in the category of someone going into shock.

“ _Copy,_ ST-321 _. Medical deboarding crew is standing by for your arrival. Dock in main landing bay A12._ ”

“Admiral Piett, on the guns,” commanded Skywalker.

Piett’s morality was called into question once more as he moved his seat slightly to the side to align with the cannon controls. The shuttle was not equipped with a stun feature, leaving him no option but to open fire on the opposing TIE fighters, but his hands did not move to shoot.

Now was not the time to freeze and Motti was about to kick the back of Piett’s seat to remind him that they couldn’t afford ethical indecision when Jerjerrod let out an unearthly scream which made all three of them nearly leap out of their seats.

“What the hell was that?” asked Motti, alarmed to see Jerjerrod squirming in his seat. His head was tilted back to the heavens, mouth forming a prayer to any higher power to please, take the pain away.

“If I had to guess, I would say another one of his internal organs just ruptured,” said Skywalker.

Jerjerrod’s pain, apparently, was the incentive Piett needed and the admiral opened fire as three TIE fighters broke across their windscreen. He was an abysmal shot and made a point of saying so to Skywalker but the Jedi encouraged him to shoot all the same. One unfortunate fighter flew right across Piett’s scope and blasted into a fiery red ball of energy.

“Good shot,” commended Skywalker.

By the dumbfounded expression on Piett’s face, Motti could see the shot was completely unintentional. He returned to the controls as the ship shuddered and the interior lights went out for a split second before popping back on.

“Did something big hit us?” asked Motti, removing the headset.

“Another ship grazed us on the underside, breached the hull. We’re losing power,” said Skywalker. “Admiral, switch all power to forward engines. This might be a crash landing.”

“ _Might_ be a crash landing?” Motti repeated.

“We’re on a collision course.”

Jerjerrod chose that moment to spew blood down his front and Motti did the sensible thing and unbuckled during a space battle to have easier access to him. He managed to stay in his own seat with his bad leg propped to the side as the useless bit of flesh it now was. He dumped the contents of the medical kit from under the seat out on the floor and found an absorbent cloth which he ran over Jerjerrod’s chin. It made little difference, but it was all Motti could do. How did one attend to a dying, bleeding man with no visible wounds? Skywalker had said it was all internal.

“Tell me you’re still with me, Commander,” Motti told Jerjerrod as he dabbed at the blood under his nose.

Jerjerrod lifted his chin a fraction and let it fall. It wasn’t much, but it was lucid.

“You ought to stay in your seat or you’ll damage that leg further,” advised Skywalker without looking at him.

“You ought to try and land without crashing or this leg might be the only part of me left—“

Skywalker once again had to spin the ship to avoid a collision with a fresh wave of TIE fighters that were now well aware that Lord Vader was not in the pilot seat or indeed, anywhere on the ship. Motti was thrown over Jerjerrod and he collided hard with the starboard dashboard. A fresh wave of pain rippled down his leg and after releasing a shriek, he let out a collection of curses he had not put into use in years.

Piett abandoned the controls to pull Motti out of the tangled mess of spare compartment contents and drag him around the back of Jerjerrod’s seat. It was a difficult task in getting Motti back into his own seat now with his leg bent entirely the wrong way in addition to resembling a pant leg filled with cotton instead of human flesh and bone. Motti’s disorientation from being thrown headlong into a solid object made it a challenge to cooperate with Piett’s instructions on how best to resume his seat. He knew his eye was swelling and blood was dribbling from a bad knock to his head but the smack from Piett’s hand stung enough for him to know that he wasn’t nearly as stunned as he ought to be.

“Stay in your bleeding seat, you idiot.”

“Admiral, I need you up front.”

Piett resumed his seat just in time to see a radiant, blinding explosion beginning as a nucleus shape and extending outward in an ever-reaching ring as the Death Star detonated. Not for the first time, Motti gazed upon his creation being reduced to less than nothing but unlike the last time, he was not the lone survivor and not the only one to witness such a breathtaking sight. He did not account for the lives lost; he couldn’t be bothered to care just now.

“Give me the headset,” said Piett, reaching his arm around behind his seat. Still fixated on the debris of his life’s work drifting past their windscreen, Motti wordlessly handed back the headset.

Tinkering with the com system’s frequency, Piett broadcasted a message to the _Executor_ which was now under the command of Vice Admiral Towitz who had been promoted last minute to Fleet Admiral once Piett was exposed. “Attention, Admiral Towitz, stand your men down, recall the fleet and issue a surrender.”

The reply came through much clearer than the rebel correspondences had, but after all, this was an Imperial shuttle linked to the mother ship’s frequency on default. “ _Shuttle ST-321, identify yourself._ ”

“This is Admiral Firmus Piett. Call off the attack, Admiral.”

“ _You…how are speaking to me right now?_ _The Emperor assured the council you and the other traitors were to be executed—“_

“Emperor Palpatine and Lord Vader were both aboard the Death Star when it blew just now or did you somehow miss the massive blast? If no other change in command occurred, Generals Mullisk, Noyce, and Sulles and Commander Brenax were also on board which leaves you solely in charge of the fleet and the millions of souls aboard your vessels. You have a responsibility to your men to pull back while you still can. If you don’t, the rebels will fire upon you.”

“ _What do you care of the souls out here engaging in a battle you’re largely responsible for?_ ”

“What I did was in an attempt to avoid this battle at all costs but fortune didn’t make that deal with me. My authority is now void, otherwise I would have given the order myself to yield but I am telling you now that you have to give that order.”

Admiral Towitz’s voice suggested the deepest loathing. “ _You are in no position to tell me how to do the duty you forfeited. You, who took the coward’s way out, fleeing to the rebels when men were reliant on you to—_ “

“Don’t make this personal, you idiot. This has never been about me or any of us who defected. We did what we did for our men and those intentions haven’t changed. I am bleeding out in this cockpit and still having this dispute with you for our men—“

“ _You deserve to lose every drop of blood for what you—_ “

“If I didn’t give a damn about you or anyone else I would let the rebels see this battle through to its final destruction and not think twice about it as I sit here dying but I am trying to save you all, as was always my duty. Stand down your men now, goddammit, Admiral!” Piett hollered.

There was no response on the other end.

But Motti flushed with admiration for Piett. Obviously the better man, perhaps the best of them, Piett’s first thought upon witnessing the Death Star’s demolition had been to try and put a halt to the ensuing battle amidst the rebels and Star Destroyer fleet for those men who he still laid claim to. His men still, even if his rank had been stripped from him.

Beside Motti, Jerjerrod’s chest heaved with a bloody cough but through it, he was smiling with the same high regard for Piett.

“They’ve stopped firing,” observed Skywalker. TIE fighters flew past them, though no green bolts came their way. All exterior cannons along the numerous Star Destroyers ceased fire. The rebels paused their offense to exchange words with their command center, perhaps wondering if this was a trick. What had been a roaring, raging battle just seconds prior in an infinitesimal portion of the galaxy was now as still as if no battle had ever taken place there. Then, fighters began to migrate toward the Destroyers, returning to their launch sites.

“He called for the cease fire,” said Skywalker, giving Piett a congratulatory grin. “Well done, Admiral. Only one last hurdle and then we’re in the clear. Aligning for landing now…” 

_Or crashing_ , thought Motti.

Skywalker frowned as if he had heard Motti’s mental remark, but kept his eyes focused ahead. “On my mark, give the thrusters one last punch. It should be just enough to get us into the landing bay…”

Motti tried to brace for impact but besides being buckled down to his seat by the crossed straps along his chest, there was nothing to hold on to. And if there was nothing for _him_ to hold on to, there certainly wasn’t anything to keep Jerjerrod from dying on impact. If Motti tried to unbuckle again and somehow blunt the force of the impact with his own body, he might go flying through the windshield. He was helpless to do anything. Again…

He heard his own name in his head, but not spoken by his voice or the voice of his conscience. And besides, he did not often address himself in the third person, not even mentally. He heard nothing else, only the echo of his name until it faded, but it had been strong and calm in his mind.

And he knew whose voice it was.

Skywalker was shouting to brace, Piett was pulling hard on the yoke, and rebel fighters streaked past them, but Motti looked aside to see Jerjerrod watching him unblinkingly. His eyelids were pulled back, giving him a startled look, or rather one of intensity as if he were trying to tell Motti something without having the ability to do so.

The ship’s top fin snapped off as they entered the medical ship’s landing bay, skidding several hundred feet and set to collide with the other side of the bay. Motti unabashedly allowed himself to yell until the ship’s nose crunched against the opposite wall. When the momentum stopped carrying them forward, Motti rubbed his already brutalized throat where the straps had been cutting into the skin but as he moved to unbuckle, he gave pause to a feeling of absence, of loneliness that had suddenly overcome him.

He turned in his seat to see Jerjerrod slumped over, eyes still wide open and glazed, mouth slackened and steadily dripping blood down his chin.

Motti put out his hand, finding it unsteady as he prepared to touch what he knew would be cold, clammy skin. His fingertips came into contact with ice as they sought out a pulse in the motionless side of Jerjerrod’s neck.

“Tiaan…”

Piett undid his straps, whirled his seat around, and was brought up short as he was met with the sight of the dead man across from him. It was apparently not enough to go by Motti’s reaction; the deciding factor would be Piett’s own observation and he too leaned over in the hopes of finding a pulse but just like Motti, he did not find the answer he was looking for. He did not, however, give up so easily.

He dug out an electro-shock device from under his control panel and switched it on. A high-pitched electric _wheee_ announced that the device was live and Piett commanded Motti to rip open the front of Jerjerrod’s uniform to apply the patches to his chest. Skywalker intervened before Motti could even express the uselessness of trying to shock back to life a man whose internal organs had all individually failed. The Jedi placed his hand over the device in a simple gesture that said all.

Piett pushed Skywalker’s hand aside and let the device fall to the floor as he knelt before his friend’s body. He was on the edge, teetering, so close to falling into the abyss but his sanity clung to the cliffside and rooted him, unable to let him sway one way or the other. With the utmost care, Piett gingerly lifted Jerjerrod’s head and set it to rest against the seatback. His hands held on, waiting for just one minute sign that there was still life in this body he held, but he was too intelligent of a man to have really hoped for such an outcome. He sank back onto his heels and bowed his head.

Skywalker stood up and looked from Motti to Piett with some sort of condolence on his lips that never got underway due to the positively hostile manner in which Motti was glaring at him. He dared the Jedi to say something and if the latter did, he was prepared to fly at him and strike with everything he had but no such outlet came. Skywalker, too, bowed at the neck in a gesture of reverence to his fallen kin of the Force before stepping around the passenger seat to greet the medical boarding party.

Motti’s grief was hushed, as all his emotions had been since leaving his home planet. The Imperial Academy had made it quite clear that sentiments were weapons to be used against them and that they would not pass their examinations if they displayed any unfavorable ones. All compassion for the human race, his sense of decency and humanity had been stamped out of him, along with the ability to express emotions that required a release. In the privacy of his own quarters, he had given in to anger and hate and fear, but this—this loss was not something he was familiar with, and so it expressed itself in the same manner that his other foreign emotions did: softly.

He could find no words to say to Piett, nor any commiseration to give himself. He could only gaze upon the body of the man who had died just as quietly as Motti’s grief had come. Died without last words, without comfort.

His was the only death that ever mattered. Those billions of lives on Alderaan, the millions of men aboard the Death Star, the legions fighting their battles across the galaxy—were all insignificant because he had not seen a one of them bleed or draw their last breath. He had never been so close to death as this. He had never cared about anyone’s death but this man’s. He had never been so justifiably angry at anyone’s death, either, and he did not know how to process it, so he remained silent for as long as he could maintain this level of calm.

“Conan—“ began Piett, but Motti shook his head and put out his hand to stop Piett’s forthcoming speech. The very thought of being lectured to on how best to handle his sorrow was enough to make him sick again.

“We need to get you off this ship,” continued Piett despite Motti’s gesture.

Again, Motti discouraged the action, grasping the undersides of his seat and biting down on the inside of his already bleeding lip.

“You can’t sit here with him when there’s nothing more you can do for him. Commander Skywalker’s people will handle him with care when they remove him—“

“They’ll do no such thing,” said Motti sharply, resting his hand on Jerjerrod’s sleeve. “No one touches him but you and me.”

“You can’t carry him, let alone walk. You need immediate—“

“I said _no one_ , damn you, Firmus.”

“You’ve hit your head hard this time and you’re not processing logic as I know you are capable of doing. You need medical attention and _he_ ,” Piett gestured at Jerjerrod’s lifeless form, “can’t sit here until you’re able to stand on your own and I’ve been shot, which leaves me unable to stand guard over him. No one can hurt him now, and you have to come to terms with the fact that that relieves you of your duty to protect him. And I won’t let his body decay in this broken shuttle because your stubbornness is a disease.”

“Grant me one favor, for the sake of our friendship, and step out of this cockpit before I break your jaw or worse,” said Motti through clenched teeth and balled fists. “Please…”

Resigned, Piett stood with a list to his stance, holding the right side of his ribs where the blast of energy had left a small, but painful trail of scorched flesh. For a moment it looked as if he would go tumbling back into the control panel but he kept his feet, though his skin had now turned the color of ash in the process and a dribble of blood was making its way down from his lip. His free hand grasped Motti’s shoulder, as Motti knew it would, and then Piett left him.

Motti waited until he heard the admiral’s footsteps fade before he released the breath he didn’t realize he had been holding in. He gasped out and swallowed greedily for air as he tried to hold in a scream he knew was coming. He was not a man prone to losing control and screaming fell into the category of someone who had completely lost their hold on their situation. Admiral Conan Motti was a man of poise and dignity—and he was about to explode.

A sideways glance at the body beside him showed him that Piett had closed Jerjerrod’s eyelids, more for Motti’s sake than anyone else’s, for which he was thankful. He didn’t know if he had the strength to have faced those empty irises any longer.

A series of footfalls told him that the medical party was boarding and that he was about to be assaulted by their equipment. Pressing the release button on his seat strap, he made to stand before remembering that he had a shattered leg and so he was hunched over in his seat when the rebels arrived, led by Skywalker who seemed to think they might need help in subduing Motti, which was an accurate assumption. Motti slapped at the first hand that came near him with a vicious snarl.

“Don’t touch me,” he barked authoritatively. 

“Admiral, Commander Skywalker has informed us that you have several pressing injuries. We are instructed to attend to them, with or without your cooperation,” said one medic.

“Then do it without,” Motti challenged savagely. He made a dive for the blaster that Piett had previously confiscated but four pairs of hands grabbed him and hauled him back. They lifted him out of his seat in spite of his thrashing, though he said nothing and made almost no sound amid the struggle. When he saw two more medics attempting to release Jerjerrod from his seat, he kicked out with his good leg with a thousand curses for the rebellion on his tongue.

Skywalker grabbed his face and Motti felt the existence of the damnable Force yet again, but not anywhere near his throat. This presence lowered itself over his heart with a dull hum, calming the raging storm longing to burst out of him. It quieted his wrath and soothed his aching, if only for a moment. But it was not real. It was merely an influence, a trick to subdue him long enough for a greater sedative to set in.

Sure enough, Motti felt the prick of a needle going into the soft flesh between his neck and shoulder and a wave of drowsiness hit him like an anvil. His eyelids grew heavy and he felt his limbs refusing to obey his commands to fight back. Skywalker released him and Motti could just form the words, “Damn you, Jedi,” before he felt his eyes roll back into his head and a hazy darkness take him.


	11. In Limbo

**ADMIRAL PIETT**

Through the observation window, it was quite eerie to watch Motti’s mostly naked and lifeless form bobbing about in the bacta tank. The respirator attached to his mouth would emit small bubbles that reassured Piett his fellow admiral was still alive, but to the human eye, he appeared dead. To allow the squelching liquid the best access to his body in what would be an extensive skin repair, Motti had been stripped down to only a pair of undergarments to preserve his modesty, showcasing the rest of his abused body in full. The tank distorted his features somewhat, but there was no mistaking the malnourishment. He had always been a bit barrel-chested, but that frame had drastically changed to instead show a thinning man that looked to be on a strict diet of self-deprivation. He couldn’t tip the scale to eleven stone soaking wet which was just over what Piett himself weighed. It was safe to say that the man was emaciated.

The bruises on his neck were too old of an injury to heal and they stood out in stark contrast to his porcelain body. The rest of his skin bore the marks of battle with Emperor Palpatine: burn scars that looked almost intentionally carved into his skin in the same pattern as the source from which they had come. They had healed over in new skin, but took on the appearance of injuries sustained ten years ago.

As a man who took his appearance seriously enough to invest in various methods of concealing his ailing self to fool both his men and Lord Vader, Motti would be none too pleased to know that he now had more scars to powder.

“How’s he doing?” asked Commander Skywalker, joining Piett at the observation window.

“The meddroid’s status update says the bacta process is nearing completion, which is all well and good because he’s overdue for the rest of his operations. He should be waking within the next hour or so, taken out, and prepared for surgery to remove some of his internal organs that were more or less destroyed thanks to the Emperor.”

“He’ll make it,” Skywalker said reassuringly. “He’s not out of danger yet, but he’s in better shape than he was. And you’ve mended nicely, I see. The two of you are tough to kill off, all things considered.”

Piett attributed that to mostly luck. He certainly wouldn’t have staked odds on his own survival, given his slender form and Motti’s mental and thus physical illness. He had thoroughly expected the shot from the light-repeating blaster to be what finished him off, but as it had been a clean shot, a complete flesh wound, he was able to continue on despite the bleeding. His endurance could be put down to the abysmal aim of the trooper that shot at him because a few centimeters to the left and it would have taken out a lung. Of course, none of these things occurred to him as he felt the blast of energy cutting through him.

When he had at last come to a resounding halt at the bottom of the second staircase below the Emperor’s throne room, he had no desire to move. He had hit every bone in his body on the way down but it was his side that had grieved him so. From hip to armpit, he was on fire but like him, his pain was quiet. He had heard his friends calling to him, but knew better than to answer.

Laying there in near darkness, one leg still on the last step and arms stretched out as if he were preparing to be crucified, he had seen two familiar faces peering down at him, watching, guarding. Their expressions were solemn, their words urgent.

“ _Get up_ ,” General Veers had said.

“ _Someone will be coming_ ,” said Captain Needa.

And he had told them he couldn’t, that his body hurt too much, that he was too weak to do anything but accept what was coming for him. Ever the smallest, ever the weakest, he had admitted openly to these visions of his dead friends that he did not possess the bravery they had. The only thing he was good for was looking away and running away.

“ _Then get up and run. Go for help, and then come back. They still need you,_ ” encouraged Veers.

Piett had wanted to rage at Veers for commanding him to do such a thing whilst bleeding profusely. As a man half Veers’s size, Piett had never had the endurance the bigger man had. Veers had never had difficulty achieving anything in life, but nothing had ever come easily to Piett and it was unfair for the former to think _this_ , of all things, would be any different.

“ _Don’t look at me like that. You were starving and withered when you had the good sense to leave your family and your home planet in search of something better. You had suffered through years of that torment. This does not even compare._ ”

He had tried to reach for either of them, but his hand passed through them without so much as a whisper of a touch. They existed in memory and nowhere else and it was that loneliness that had taken what little reserved strength Piett thought he might have left. 

“ _You can’t grieve for us anymore,_ ” said Needa, not unkindly. “ _Not when there is life yet in the youngest of us, our brotherhood. They’re solely your responsibility now._ ”

Tears of resentment had threatened to spring up through his ducts at that statement. He had not asked for that responsibility, nor had he believed that he would ever have a chance to put it into practice. The five of them knew that if they died, it would be in the line of duty but Piett had not thought to find himself as the last of the elder half of their boyhood group. He had not ever considered that he alone would be charged with such a monumental task, especially since he secretly relied on Veers and Needa to help him carry this burden of keeping watch over the youngest of their group. Without them, he knew he wasn’t equipped to do what they had done so much better, but he had tried and done a terrible job of it. 

It was Motti who had distracted Vader when Piett was certain he was about to die and it was Jerjerrod who had broken his bindings. What had he done? He had run and gotten shot for his efforts, leaving his friends at the Emperor’s mercy. If he tried to climb back up this staircase to confront the Sith, he would be cut down with laughable ease. He couldn’t _do_ anything.

“ _You don’t get to lay down and die when you’re still breathing. For as long as you’re still breathing, you have the ability to fight. You can be sure Tiaan and Conan will be._ ”

_But I’m nothing like them_ , Piett had wanted to argue.

" _You don’t have to be. But you have to get up. You are all that’s holding you back and it’s time to stop doubting yourself. You don’t have that luxury anymore._ "

And then he had heard Jerjerrod’s presence in his mind. He didn’t speak, offered him nothing but his company, reassuring Piett that he was there and he would be there for as long as he could. Piett had drawn strength from that and nurtured it as his life source.

There could be no more doubt, nor more self-serving thoughts. Every part of him still able to move had to center on why he still wanted to. Not for him, not for his peace of mind, not for his sense of duty to his men. He had to live for someone other than himself. Cowardice was too selfish for him to hold on to any longer.

He took up the blaster he had fallen with, aimed it at the staircase, and waited for the follow-up mercenary he knew would be coming. He did not believe in the exchange of one life for another, but the man about to descend the staircase could not live if Piett was to accomplish his goal and so when he saw the breathing apparatus portion of the trooper’s helmet, he put a hole in it.

The trooper had collapsed over Piett’s legs, trapping him momentarily as he collected the wits to move. Then it was a matter of pounding the message into his brain that he had to stand, to walk, to run, to keep moving. He could not lay down, could not let his feet give out from under him or he knew he would never be able to stand again. 

At a wall com port, he had punched in an access code that he was most fortunate had not been changed and issued a station-wide evacuation order that relayed over the loudspeakers. It was the best distraction he could think to put into effect, but one that might have mixed reactions. Those who took the order seriously would flock to the escape pods and shuttles and those who didn’t would trace the order back to where it had been delivered and know it was not sanctioned by an active officer.

With the station in chaos thereafter, Piett had found the way around back to the throne room in blissful isolation until he had quite literally collided with a solid wall of black that breathed mechanically in response. The one time his reaction was quick enough to do him some service, it was not needed, for as he had lifted his blaster, Vader had summoned the weapon from Piett’s hands where it crashed onto the floor out of reach. The Sith had then continued walking without explanation. At this point, Piett had contemplated whether that meant he was going to stumble upon a massacre in the throne room or if some wild turn of events had placed Vader on their side.

With the former being the more likely, Piett had steeled himself for what he knew he would find. Still, he set his blaster for stun…

Finding both Jerjerrod and Motti still alive and in Skywalker’s company, he had thought that his part to play was over and done, but the greatest task had yet to be asked of him. His body was pushed through its absolute limits from keeping pace with the fast-moving Jedi to simply helping carry Jerjerrod into the shuttle cockpit but after the last of his willpower to stay on his feet had trickled out of him along with the blood at his side, he was asked to be a co-pilot and perform all the entailing duties. 

He was dying, Jerjerrod and Motti were dying behind him, and Skywalker had asked him to help him steer the ship, to speak to the rebels in articulate sentences, to act as gunner, to prevent the ship from crashing…

And at the end of the journey, after his body had nothing left to give, he had turned around in his seat to see one of his friends dead. One dead, the other wanting nothing to do with him. His body moved of its own accord without him at the controls, taking him away from the last man he knew he would die for—and it seemed he might very well die for.

He had the strength to step off the boarding ramp with his head held high, but his body failed him immediately after. The medical deboarding crew had split in two with half heading inside to deal with Motti. The other half had lifted Piett onto a hovering gurney and began bombarding him with questions to his ailments, his most serious injuries. Besides some bruising and scrapes as a result of his battle through the Death Star to the docking bay, Piett only had the blaster wound to account for and told them so while he was still coherent and conscious.

They had taken him to the bacta tank chamber, cut his uniform away and left him in nothing but an unflattering piece of material to cover himself below. Unable to stand on his own, he had been lowered into the tank and given a respirator before submerging to await the long repair process to mend the destroyed flesh. According to the surgeon-droid, he was a model patient, but then again, he had been awake throughout the procedure, attentively listening to the droid’s commands to speed up the healing process. He had spent a little less than a day in the tank and been too weak to walk on his own when he came out.

An assistant walker had been assigned to him and he had used the device to guide him from his infirmary room out into the corridor where he had hollered for an update on Motti and directions to wherever the admiral was being held. After issuing him a rebel admiral’s garb, the human medical crew had shown him to the observational deck in front of the bacta tank chamber and it was here that Piett had remained for nearly all hours of the day.

Someone—and he suspected he knew exactly who—had given him clearance to take up residence outside the window as long as he was compliant with taking his meals, medication, and blood transfusion and having his vitals checked hourly. Almost every medic and meddroid who attended him tried to coerce him into sitting in the seat brought into the hall for him, but bending at the waist was becoming a mundane task if done repetitively. Though his wound was a little more than a scar, internally, he would require a certain amount of therapy. It caused him no great pain to perform basic functions, but sitting hurt a great deal more than standing and so he was resigned to stand for as long as Motti’s residence was the bacta tank. A small price to pay for what could have been a much more unforgiving wound.

Motti, on the other hand, would be a completely different story…

“The scarring could have been worse,” said Skywalker, jerking Piett from his thoughts. “And his insides could have been completely charred if the Emperor had been trying to rupture him from the inside out.”

“If he came out of his encounter with the Emperor this badly, looking as horrible as he does…” Piett trailed off to let Skywalker deduce his unasked question.

“The diagnostics for Commander Jerjerrod’s body have come back. I came to ask if you wanted to know the results.”

It would do no good to know; nothing could be gained from knowing, but Piett’s own morbid curiosity to find out the extent of damage to his friend’s body made him appeal to Skywalker for the answer.

“In the least gruesome way I can describe it, his heart and his left lung were the only organs to not suffer immediately from his use of the Force to bring down the Emperor’s chamber ceiling. Moving an object of that size for any Jedi or Sith is an enormous undertaking and both sides of the Force know their limits as to what they can move and control. My own master was able to move an X-wing, though it cost him considerable energy. The objects I’ve attempted to control haven’t been much bigger than that because I know what would be too much for my body to obtain.

Commander Jerjerrod had no such idea of what moving something that large would do to him. He had never been told or trained in the art of moving a single object. He moved two Imperial Guards, a set of binders, and then a lightsaber to no ill effect and then graduated much too early to an entire hangar and his body wasn’t prepared to harness such power. As a Force-sensitive being, he knew he could bring the hangar down, but I don’t think he knew that it would kill him to try. He didn’t know to what extent he could use his powers, otherwise I’m sure he would have held back, but I believe he also knew there was a chance he could die and he took that chance anyway before the Emperor could kill Admiral Motti. 

As I’ve said before, the miracle was that he lived even a second beyond that undertaking. His organs shut down one by one, which would explain the blood from his facial orifices. I knew he would die as soon as I saw what he had done, but he must have been stronger with the Force than I initially thought, because he lasted nearly an hour after the fact. Your friend was living—with some aid of the Force—on a heart and a lung alone for the last hour of his life. For that, you should be proud of him, but I sense that you already are.”

Pride did not even begin to describe Piett’s feelings and fond recollection of the courageous officer. He was honored to have met him, privileged to have been with him at the end, and blessed to know what a selfless individual Tiaan Jerjerrod had been. “Commander Jerjerrod was a man of goodness and strength the rest of us could only wish for. I am not surprised. And I’ve always been proud of him—as my fellow officer and as my friend.”

“I would wait to tell _him_ though,” said Skywalker with a nod at Motti’s unresponsive body.

“I imagine that would be the appropriate course of action,” Piett agreed. “Best not to tell him anything other than that he is headed for an additional surgery.”

“Should we expect another admirably stupid tantrum when he wakes up?”

“I don’t imagine he will resist in quite the same way, Commander. He’s far too weak to fight back this time. It shouldn’t be anything the meddroid can’t handle.”

“How long do you figure until he finds out about his new limb?”

“If it were any other man, I would wager a guess as to say that it might take some days, perhaps even weeks, but Admiral Motti has always been far too observant to his own good, and he’ll notice as soon as he tries to move it.”

Privately, Piett believed that Motti would be absolutely abhorred by the alterations to his body, but he was an adaptable man; he would learn to live with it. Unless he didn’t. The conquered look he had taken on in the cockpit as he sat beside their dead friend’s body suggested that maybe he did not want to adapt this time. His life’s achievements, his goals and aspirations were all worthless, for the now nonexistent Empire was required to continue doing the only thing he had ever known. Twenty years of service, vying to be the next Grand Moff or something that commanded equal respect and now he was the equivalent of a prisoner of war. He was a man with no rank and no greater governing body to serve, taken in by rebels until they could decide what to do with him.

The Empire, the Imperial Fleet, had been Motti’s life and he knew nothing of the universe without it.

And then there was the fact that he had seen his friend battle the Emperor and essentially lose—on his behalf. The man who did his best to protect Motti from Vader, the voice of reason when his head grew too inflated, the calming presence when he grew fraught, was gone.

With no guide, no goal, and little else working in his favor, finding out how his body had been altered when he came out of the bacta tank was sure to be his tipping point, if he hadn’t already reached that. Motti was not a violent man, yet Piett had absolutely believed him when he threatened to break Piett’s jaw earlier and that was before the surgeries he was about to undergo.

“Given how uncooperative he was the last time, I think sending in a team instead of a droid at least until he can be properly sedated would be the best thing to do for his safety—and others,” said Skywalker as they continued to observe Motti’s form.

The last of Motti’s restraint when it came to his thoughts and actions had been used up in the Death Star’s main docking bay and Piett didn’t like to think of what level of calamity he could cause if allowed to. “On second thought, I would agree.”

The meddroid touched the end of a scanner to the outside of the tank and Motti made an involuntary twitch with the first stage of the revival process. He would be waking soon.

“It looks convincing enough to me,” said Skywalker. “What does it look like to you?”

“It looks like a leg, Commander.”

Not even an hour later, the meddroid invited Piett into the room for Motti’s resurgence. The medical team had assembled at the top of the bacta tank and down the steps from it, forming a bucket line to pass off Motti’s body so he could be lowered onto an awaiting cot below.

The meddroid gave the scanning device one more probe and a final awakening shock sent Motti floating toward the surface of the tank. When his head broke through, the medics removed his respirator, unclamping his nose to allow free-flowing oxygen. Motti’s eyes snapped open and he gave a shuddering inhale as his body came into contact with air for the first time in three days. His body was unaccustomed to having to hold itself up and one medic supported him by wrapping his forearms underneath Motti’s.

“Steady.”

Motti had no response other than to gasp as the colder temperature of the medical bay washed over him. From his own experience, Piett knew it was pleasantly warm inside the bacta tank, but Motti had not been exposed to air for some time and his body broke out in shivers.

Shining a light down into each eye individually, another medic lifted Motti’s face upward, cupping his jaw to lessen the bobbing.

“He’s alright. Let’s lift him out, on three…”

As one unit, the four medics at the top pulled Motti from the tank and the sticky, suctioning liquid relinquished its hold on him. He was lowered down to the main level where he was set on a hovering cot. His limbs were curled inward as if caught in a seizure, unable to function properly on their own. For those coming out of the bacta tank unconscious, the after-effects were surprisingly similar to someone awakening from carbon-freeze but Motti did not adhere to the normal standards of a patient who should still be very much under the influence of a sedative.

Resilient, even stubbornly so, Motti tried to sit up on the cot but was held down by both arms.

“What’re…you…doing?” he slurred as he tried to make sense of what was happening around him. 

“External injuries have been tended to, Admiral, but now you must undergo surgery.”

As the uncooperative burden he was, Motti attempted to elbow one medic in the groin and then spotted Piett through the jungle of arms that detained him. He called out for help, seeing one friendly face among dozens of hostile ones.

“Let me through to him,” said Piett, seeking to deescalate the situation before Motti attacked someone who would not be so forgiving of his actions. The medics stood aside as Piett approached the hovering cot.

“These people…”

An additional side-effect of prolonged exposure to the bacta was phantasms and for someone who had horrifyingly vivid images to recall, Motti could very well be seeing the medics around him as monsters, Sith, enemies all. He was grounded by Piett’s presence in how he grasped Piett’s wrist tightly enough to bruise the skin. It was a desperate man’s grip.

“Easy,” said Piett comfortingly, convincing Motti to lay back down. “Rest easy, now.”

Motti’s entire body was convulsing with uncontrollable shivers and Piett took one of the thermal blankets silently offered to him from the medics and covered Motti’s lower body.

“It’s cold,” said Motti. “S-s-so _cold_ …”

“It’s only a side-effect of being submerged in bacta for the better part of three days. Your skin needed extensive repair. You’ll be warm soon. Tell me what you remember from before, the last thing you recall.”

With Motti’s attention focused on recounting his last memories, Piett was able to gesture for one of the medics to move in with a sedative.

“We crashed. There were…explosions of light. And blood.”

The needle that entered Motti’s skin was enough to make him flinch and then only the whites of his eyes were visible as he passed into unconsciousness once more. Piett had to work at Motti’s fingers for a few seconds to pry the cataleptic but still uncommonly strong grip off of his wrist. Once he had, the medical team closed in to wheel Motti off for a long list of surgeries.

“Do be careful with him. He’s not a well man,” said Piett. Skywalker might have already informed the team that Motti was not of the soundest of minds, but Piett hoped he would not have to emphasize the likelihood of Motti’s mental instability in the wake of such a traumatic experience.

“Not to worry, sir, he will be well taken care of,” assured the surgeon-droid accompanying the team. “You will be notified when he has come out of surgery and taken to a recovery room.”

Finding that he was not altogether reassured by the droid and feeling that perhaps he should elaborate to the humans who could understand his faltering, Piett took one medic aside. “I know I don’t need to tell you this, but he’s gone through a considerable amount of mental strain and I fear for his sanity if he wakes up without me present. Please, send someone to bring me to him before he’s conscious again.”

“You’ll be notified at the first signs of consciousness from him,” said the medic in words almost verbatim to what the surgeon-droid had said.

“I need to be there.” It was not a question. “He needs me there.”


	12. Ashes and Dust

**ADMIRAL MOTTI**

Years of spending day in and day out in a snug uniform made it blaringly obvious when he was not dressed in that uniform and he awoke to a feeling of nakedness. He had been put in a standard issue infirmary gown, leaving his arms, legs, and chest bare. A thin sheet was draped over his legs which offered little protection against the chill of the room. There was a widespread observational window in front of him from which he gathered he had been stared at while unconscious but thankfully now, no one stood there. The room was bright, giving him a fully detailed display of his battered body.

“Your internal temperatures suggest that you are cold, sir. Would you like me to raise the heat setting for you?” asked a meddroid on his right. He had seen this type of droid before but never been examined by one and its facial structure reminded him too much of a certain Sith lord for his liking.

“How are you feeling, sir?”

“Hollow,” answered Motti.

“That might be due to the removal, rearrangement, and repair of several of your vital organs, sir. A complete list is as follows: removal of appendix, removal of left kidney, repair of liver, repair of punctured lung, replacement of—“

“That’s about as much as I care to hear right now,” Motti cut in.

“As you wish, sir. You are attached to several machines that enable you to receive the medication and nutrition to sustain you in your current form. As it stands, you are not yet ready to be moving about and so you are confined to your bed, scheduled to be monitored hourly and—“

Motti had stopped listening when he realized confined quite literally meant confined, as he was strapped down across his chest and by both wrists. Panic set in, fear at the recollection of how he had fared the last time he had ended up in bindings.

“Tell your superior that I want out of these restraints now,” he told the droid.

“My superior instructed me to tell you that the restraints are necessary, given your negative reaction to the medical team’s initial attempts to subdue you.”

“I don’t give a damn what your superior said, you tell him that I want out or I’m going to turn my bed over and wreak havoc on all of this medical equipment.”

“Please do not resort to self-harm, sir.”

“I don’t want to hurt myself, I want out of these restraints, dammit,” he swore as his blood pressure and pulse both spiked on the monitors.

“May I ask why?”

“No, you may not,” snarled Motti as he tried to lift his wrists enough to get some movement in the rocking of his bed.

“Then I am afraid that I must insist that you—“

Motti was prepared to scream again, something he had done far too often in the past few days than he had in his entire life, but there was no use in reasoning with a droid, so shouting to make a ruckus and bring humans or some other sentient being to his room was his next best option.

No medical personnel arrived, though. Instead he was treated to a visit from his least favorite person at the moment, Skywalker, who dismissed the meddroid and loomed over Motti’s cot.

“If I take off the restraints, I need you to be calm,” he negotiated.

“I was calm until I realized I had restraints on,” Motti retorted. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Skywalker undid the bindings and Motti rubbed at his wrists more as a reassurance to himself that he was free than to rub circulation back into them. He placed his hands at his sides to help him sit up and a peculiar sensation running down his hip to his heel told him that the repair process to his leg did not conclude how he initially thought it would. Mentally preparing for what he was about to find, he threw back the coverlets draped across his lower body and found—

Two legs. Two legs that looked like human legs. And one definitely was as he pinched it and felt heat and muscle there. His dressing gown fell to just above his knees and so he could see that his right leg was the same as ever with a scar across his kneecap from a bad fall during his days of training at the academy. His leg hair had been burned off, as had most of his bodily hair not sitting atop his scalp, thanks to his sampling of the Emperor’s powers What differed from what he remembered of his leg was a series of webbing scars underneath the new, raw, pink skin sealed onto him to heal the burns from his electrocution.

His left leg bore none of those scars but otherwise looked identical to his right, straight down to the mark across his knee. His left leg was a carbon copy of his right, recreated after using the right as a visual reference.

Motti pinched at the skin and found it lukewarm, not quite capable of holding the temperature the human body was able to sustain. He traced the muscle and bone down to his knee, then his shin, and finally his ankle and foot. Here the change was most distinguishable, as he was able to feel the minor inorganic nature of his bones. The geometric shape to them, the artificial way in which he felt them flexing. Not quite droid, but deceptively made to look human.

“What is it?” he asked with a distasteful look at his new appendage.

“Bonemer,” answered Skywalker. “Admiral Piett figured you would want the closest substitution to human bone as opposed to going robotic.”

“He figured wrong. I would have preferred to keep my original leg.”

“There was no salvaging it. It had to be removed almost immediately once you were put under—”

“You had them drug me with a med-shot before I had my say, otherwise I would have told you that I’d personally see to your suffering for allowing them to take my leg.”

“Again, that wasn’t my decision, but your friend’s, as he was the only one who had your best interests at heart. He had to make the choice to give you a new appendage or allow you to keep the crushed remains of your original one and die from infection or be hobbled for life. Thanks to him, you’ll walk again.”

“Thanks to him, I now have something in common with the man who gave me these,” Motti pointed viciously at his bruised neck. “An insult to my body and to nature, having an artificial limb…”

“I have an artificial limb,” said Skywalker, and proved it by removing the glove on his right hand to show Motti the mechanical contraptions beneath a very convincing faux skin layer. “I’m no more of an abomination to nature than you are, and I didn’t blow up a planet.”

“It amuses you to make me absolutely miserable, doesn’t it?”

“Actually, I was wondering how a man as prone to childish tantrums as you managed to come by the rank of admiral.”

“Twenty years is a long time to keep disdain bottled up and now that I no longer serve the Empire, I need not worry about being demoted or otherwise punished for speaking my mind. You just happen to be present for the grand reopening of two decades’ worth of frustration.”

“I should count myself lucky, then, as should you.”

“Explain to me how and why I should consider myself lucky with _this_.” Motti lifted his new leg and let it drop back onto the cot with near perfect human movement that brought him no satisfaction.

“You’re a very fortunate man, Admiral. Fortunate to have friends who would go to such lengths for you, even at the expense of their own lives. Commander Jerjerrod was proof of that.”

“How so?”

“You mean you don’t know what he did?”

“He did enough to get himself killed, but I was incapacitated for most of it. Flat on my stomach and screaming and I didn’t see a thing until it was over so no, I don’t know what he did. I only have an educated guess.”

“And the chunks of ceiling lying around you didn’t give you a hint?”

“I don’t appreciate the cynicism.”

“He provided a distraction. He effectively broke off a large piece of the chamber and it fell toward the Emperor who had to abandon his torture of you to move out of the way, but he wasn’t prepared for what was waiting for him after he’d gathered himself up again. My father and I were there to engage him in combat again. My father struck the final blow.”

Less interested in how the Emperor had met his end and keen to know how Jerjerrod had achieved the feat of effectively breaking an entire throne room in half, Motti posed this question to the Jedi, who obliged him.

“My master once told me that the Force was to be used for knowledge and defense, not as a weapon. Allowing the Force to manipulate you and feed off of your hatred would lead to the dark side. Commander Jerjerrod didn’t understand that to its full extent, but he knew that the Emperor wanted him to use his hate. He understood that his hate was what was giving him his power and that he didn’t want to be driven by it. By allowing his hate to rule his heart, he had opened the door for the dark side to overwhelm him and give him the means to access his power. But at the last minute, he tried to take it back and find a noble enough reason to destroy the ceiling. The Force worked with him, but the switch and the battling forces inside of him were too much. He waged that war within him until the end.”

Motti did not envy Force-sensitive beings for this very reason. He knew he was filled with hate and had accepted it at the tender age of four, but he could only make decisions based on that hate, not alter what was in front of him with powers he couldn’t see. Jerjerrod had obtained his powers, used them, and fought with them all in the space of perhaps half an hour. He had learned that they worked more efficiently for him when he allowed the dark side to leech the abhorrence from within him to do its bidding, but when he most needed the Force to work in his favor, it would not yield to him unless he found a worthy reason to need its power. Whilst burning in agony from being electrocuted, he had battled with his own mind and soul while Motti had only burned.

And he had done it with no guarantee that it would stop the Emperor but with no weapon left in his arsenal that could combat the Emperor’s superior skills, Jerjerrod had done it knowing how his actions would end.

Motti suddenly felt disgustingly sick to his stomach. He was revolted by himself, by the man he was and how Jerjerrod had been so adamant in wanting to preserve goodness in him that had never been there to begin with.

“You don’t approve of his decision,” said Skywalker shrewdly. “Perhaps he felt that you deserved a second chance to right the things you’ve wronged.”

“That _was_ my second chance. I was on board the Death Star you destroyed and I escaped to help construct the second one. I carried out the order to vaporize Alderaan, I helped track down and execute several fleeing transports full of rebels following the battle in the Hoth system, and I am a defining reason as to how and why the Empire grew to the might that it did. I’m despicable. I’ve known it my entire life and haven’t done anything to change it and he knew that about me. Nothing I’ve done warranted that man’s sacrifice. He had no right.”

“I pity you for not being able to accept his sacrifice because of your own selfish need to find fault in his actions. He chose to join the Rebel Alliance, knowing the risks he was taking, knowing that Vader might reveal him. You made that same choice and your ill standing with Vader made your situation worse. As a true friend would, Commander Jerjerrod came to your defense not because it was the right thing to do, but because his mission from the beginning was to stop the mistreatment of all those who served under the Emperor. He made that decision to defect shortly after he learned what Vader had done to you.”

Motti found his mouth hanging open at Skywalker’s revelation of a series of subjects Motti believed to be private.

“How could you possibly know any of that?”

“I felt it in his actions,” answered Skywalker simply. “Commander Jerjerrod was Force-sensitive even if he was not a Jedi and I was able to read his emotions, his thoughts, and his actions once he realized that he could communicate with me. I felt every reason for his every action. I saw his grief for friends passed, those who died in battle and those who fell victim to Vader’s tyranny, friends who met their ends too soon. He knew Admiral Piett was reaching his breaking point and would be next in line to face the figurative firing squad if he failed Vader again and the bruises on your neck proved to him that he had to take action sooner rather than later. I would call that heroism, as I would call your anger denial.”

“Call it what you want, but you don’t know what it is.”

“I can feel it. You suffer from guilt and the only way to rationalize it is to place the blame on the man you called friend. And before you ask, yes, I would know what it feels like. I’ve lost many friends and family to this war…but not my only friend. Or at least, one of my only friends. I would advise you to not be as cold and brooding toward Admiral Piett when he comes to see you.”

“He knows me well enough to know when I want his company and when I’d rather be left alone.”

“I’m not sure he does. Like you, he has never experienced grief in this manner before and nothing is certain for him right now. But I can tell you this, I would be ready to give you a stern talking to if I was him. I understand how difficult it was for you to face the commander’s death in the moment, but Admiral Piett was in poor shape when he came off that shuttle and if the recovery team hadn’t seen to him immediately, you would be completely alone in this universe. Your last conversation with him could have been right there if he had not survived and how would you feel knowing that the last thing he knew from you was your indifference for him?”

“My dislike for you exceeds monumental proportions.,” Motti seethed. “I am not _indifferent_ toward him.”

“I think he needs to be convinced otherwise, as do I. He won’t tell you this, but despite your promise to break his jaw, he was dead-set on being with you through every step of your recovery process. He waited outside the bacta chamber for three days and has been on the other side of that observational window for two days straight until he collapsed from exhaustion, and I’m not exaggerating. The only reason he isn’t here right now is because he had to be revived and fed adrenaline to combat the fatigue. Your friends are extremely loyal to you. Not many men can claim the same of their friends, if they’re lucky enough to have any.”

“Their loyalty won’t do them any favors. It got one of them killed. Loyalty bordering on the brink of stupidity is what got him killed. And it’ll send the other to an early grave too, if he’s not careful.”

The restraint it took for Skywalker to not visibly roll his eyes was almost amusing to watch. “I don’t think I’ve ever met such a bullheaded individual before. I’ve known arrogant and overly-confident men in my time, but never one with such animosity for everything.”

“It’s easier to live life hating everything; that way nothing disappoints you.”

“If your hate was what drove Commander Jerjerrod to have to make this decision for you, perhaps you should reconsider how you use it before you lose the one friend you have left.”

There was nothing within reach to throw at Skywalker, but Motti was prepared to yank out every tube and wire connected to him and throttle the Jedi with them. He would not be told by anyone, least of all a knight of an ancient order how he ought to interact with a man he had known for most of his life. What right did the Jedi have to lecture Motti on the repercussions of his decisions when it was Skywalker’s fault Motti had made those decisions in the first place? The audacity…

“If you’re thinking of trying to fight me, don’t,” Skywalker advised.

“Get out.”

The Jedi conceded far easier than Motti expected or liked. He had thoroughly been committed to having an all out fisticuffs with Skywalker, but as the man backed out of the room, Motti was left with his anger unfulfilled. He was prepared to lose the fight, but it would have been the outlet he needed and now he had nothing but the trembling in his balled fists.

Motti pulled his new leg to his chest and dug his fingernails into his kneecap, as it was the only solid object available to him. He instructed himself to find an even breathing pattern, to collect and center his thoughts on something other than the anger. The tools to manage himself were not as his disposal but this was not the time to explode and give the rebels a show of just how unstable he was. He had never been this unhinged before, never been this close to a complete meltdown.

Except for when he had sprinted in the early hours of the morning to Jerjerrod’s quarters in a state of panic, not knowing what he would say or how he could admit that he so desperately needed help. That had been the first real conversation he had had with Jerjerrod since their academy days and it had been an undeniable comfort but he would rescind it if he could. If that was the night where Jerjerrod had decided to turn his back on the Empire and the Imperial Fleet, Motti would just as soon have remained in his room to face the night alone. Jerjerrod had seen him at his most defenseless then and pitied him and made the choice to alter his future on Motti’s behalf.

In seeking help, Motti had put both himself and Jerjerrod on a self-destructive path. This, _this_ was why he had always hidden his insecurities from the others. They cared too deeply, would have gone too far, and now one of them had.

Someone cleared their throat from the doorway.

Piett stood there at attention, stoic and silent as he had learned to be when waiting for permission to enter a room and Motti beckoned him forward. His fellow admiral came to stand at his bedside, hands clasped behind him as if awaiting a verdict. His eyes scanned Motti from head to heel, looking for defections.

“I gave orders to alert me before you awoke so that I would be here to avoid a panic,” he said apologetically.

“I don’t think rebels take orders from dishonorably discharged admirals of the Imperial Fleet,” said Motti without humor, but could see that Piett was still on tenterhooks, waiting for a negative reaction. “I hope you know that I’m not angry with you for what happened on the shuttle.”

“I didn’t know you were angry,” said Piett in polite surprise.

Motti had to do a double take, as he could not be sure he had heard Piett correctly. Piett’s visage was one of complete incredulousness and so Motti found an inappropriate tremor of a chuckle in his throat that the man could have known Motti for that long and not known when he showed true anger.

“What did you think I meant when I said I would hit you if you didn’t leave me be aboard that broken shuttle?”

“I took that to be misdirected sorrow, inexpressible pain. I know how you earned your reputation as being a cold, immovable man, and so you would have some difficulty coming to terms with the truth when you finally processed it. You are not the same man who you were before the Emperor hurt you, though I cannot say if the change is for better or worse. All I know is that you were never angry. From what little emotions I’ve been exposed to all these years drifting through the galaxies, I know anger and fear best and what you exhibited was not anger.”

“Why do all you people claim to know what goes on inside my head? Who are you to tell me what emotions I was feeling?” Motti demanded.

“If by ‘you people’, you mean myself and Commander Skywalker, I would say that his observations are based on his understanding of the Force while mine are rooted solely in the fact that I have known you for some twenty-odd years and have come to see a drastic change take place in you. You’ve been through the most extensive transformation I’ve ever seen.”

“You mean a grander transformation than having several internal biological structures removed or replaced and having my entire leg taken off?” snapped Motti. “Skywalker told me you were responsible for that.”

“They cut you out of your uniform and removed your leg not even an hour after we landed. Your skin was so delicate, it was difficult to operate much more except to tend to the absolutely crucial organs and then they put you in the bacta tank to repair your skin before taking you back out to perform the last and least imperative of your operations. I had no say in what they took apart from the leg.”

He made it sound as if he had done Motti a favor, as if Motti should be grateful. The pressure in Motti’s temples that had built up during his discussion with Skywalker had returned in full glory and he was about to unleash it.

“You had no say in anything they took, including my leg,” he said, his voice beginning low but escalating despite his best efforts to regulate it. “You and Tiaan and Vader and the Emperor, all treating my body like it’s an object at your disposal to salvage or rip apart at your convenience. This is _my_ body and if I wanted to keep my leg, you should have let me.”

Whatever sort of reaction Piett had expected from him, it was not this. “The only discussion we had about anything related to what would happen after we crashed was what would become of Tiaan’s body. I don’t recall you saying at any point that you cared one way or another what happened to your leg and I don’t think it ever crossed your mind until you woke up just now and realized you’re one genuine limb short. There was no time to wake you and ask, ‘do you mind terribly if your leg is removed’. I made the most logical choice for you.”

“The only point at which you should even consider that you have any right as to what happens to me is when I’m lying dead on a slab. You have no connections with the Force like Tiaan did and so you have no greater knowledge of what’s going on inside my head and what I want or need, otherwise you’d have known that I’d have preferred that you let them euthanize me. But since you couldn’t leave well enough alone and I’m stuck here, I’ll tell you this, the same as I would tell Tiaan if he were here: you can decide how they dispose of me, but until then, you’ll keep your damn decisions and opinions on what’s best for me to yourself. ”

He had struck a nerve, and it gave him pause. Twice now his words had made Piett angry, which was more of a tribute to Motti’s ability to get under another man’s skin rather than Piett’s lack of self control. Piett simply did not break, but with this now being only the second time Motti had overstepped his good standing with his fellow officer, Piett's fury seemed warranted. A shadow passed over Piett’s face and Motti braced for the comeuppance he knew was in store for him.

“You don’t get to talk to me in that manner as if what I think doesn’t matter when I had to dump Lorth’s body into the garbage chute after it had been stripped of all dignity,” and though there was a quiver in his voice, Piett’s raging sentiments grew with every word now that he was finally revealing what had gone on aboard that particular Star Destroyer. “You have no room to say such things to me when I was faced with yet another friend’s death, but finally had the chance to do something to prevent it. I’m just a man, not the Force-sensitive being Tiaan was, that much is true, and so I could only do what my limited human means allowed me to. That included making the decision to take your leg instead of letting it infect the rest of you and then watching them put you down like a wild animal when you succumbed to the fever.”

There were two trails running down from Piett’s eyes, both remnants of a single tear apiece and he wiped his sleeve across his face, incensed by this demonstration of vulnerability when he wanted to rage at Motti for his insensitivity. “I was watching the very last living soul I knew die in front of me and it was no contest as to what I would choose to do. I made that choice to save your life and I don’t care one bit if it was for my own selfish reasons any more than I care how you feel about it. You will never hear an apology from me for doing that, I assure you, Admiral.”

Motti knew his face had grown more and more distressed with every word, but Piett still was not finished with him.

“I’ve come to expect less than gratitude from you and I certainly didn’t expect any for doing this, but you _will_ understand why I did it. You were the one who accused me of being a spineless bystander when Vader killed Lorth, but now that I stepped in on your behalf, it’s suddenly blasphemous? No, I’ve had enough from you and your double standards and the rubbish that comes out of your mouth for no good goddamn reason than to hide behind it all. I will not stand for any more of it.”

If Piett was not the forgiving sort, Motti would have unwittingly fallen victim to Skywalker’s prediction right then and there. Piett could have walked out, never looked back, and never come back, but he stayed. He stayed to grind reality and truth into Motti’s skull, giving Motti had one last chance to redeem himself.

Motti remained silent a few moments after Piett had concluded his rant until he managed to whisper, “The garbage chute?”

Piett had to backtrack to piece Motti’s question with what had already been said. “Yes, Lord Vader gave orders for Lorth to be dumped with the rest of the waste. It was Lorth’s determination to report his mistake that led him to his death, not stupidity. It was Tiaan’s resolve to bring that sort of needless slaughtering to an end that killed him, not stupidity. I’ll not let you call their plights and sufferings the work of fools.”

“I never said—“

“I heard you speaking to Commander Skywalker. I heard the words, Conan, don’t lie to me.”

“You think I would spill my innermost feelings to a Jedi?”

“Did you?”

“No, I did not, though I suspect he knew anyway, him and those damnable Jedi senses.”

“Then what would you call what Tiaan did?”

“My fault.” Motti withered as he said the words. “It was my fault. The Emperor used me to hurt him. He knew Tiaan would try to protect me at cost to his own life. That’s the sort of selfless man he was. How filthy do you think I feel that I couldn’t do the same thing for him, or for you? How stupid and useless and pathetic do you think I feel that it took both of you spilling actual blood for me to try and reciprocate that protection? This,” he gestured at himself in absolute self-loathing, “is what Tiaan died to save. What good is this? What the hell sort of good am I now? He knew what I was, you know what I am, and I’m not worth what he gave.”

His vitals were spiking again and he knew the meddroid would be in at any moment to sedate him or worse, but he kept talking, to vomit it all out like the poison it was in his system. He had to admit this guilt to someone who knew Tiaan Jerjerrod and there was only one person left alive who did.

“I don’t understand why he would do that for anyone, least of all me. I don’t care if he thought I needed his protection. I put in diligent work to ensure that none of you ever felt the need to take the fall for me, but he did it anyway and left me without an answer as to why.”

Piett’s anger had abated and replaced itself with bafflement. “You can’t tell me that you don’t know why. As underdeveloped as you are in the emotive field, you aren’t stupid. Why did you drag him across the Death Star? Why did you go half mad when Lord Vader took you aboard the shuttle without him?”

“Because…” Motti had no ready answer. 

“You know this, Conan, I know you do. You know why he’s dead and you’re not. Admitting to it doesn’t make you any less of who you are, and it certainly isn’t a flaw. He loved you. You were and always have been his family, his brother-- _our_ brother. What did you think he meant when he said you were his responsibility? The Emperor called his love for us his weakness, but he achieved what no other Jedi or Sith ever had with strength none of them could muster—for us.”

Hearing those words spoken aloud made every bitter moment real and made the pain return in full. His friend was dead, his friend had cared for him, and his friend would never be able to tell him that himself. Jerjerrod’s was the voice he would never again hear when he most needed it, his face the one Motti could no longer turn to. That reliance Motti had come to know from Tiaan Jerjerrod was now lost to him. 

The man who had just given him the most severe telling off he had ever received and was fully deserving of was all that remained in Motti’s possession. The infirmary gown on him was not his. The bonemer inside his leg was not his. He owned nothing and had nothing apart from the last of his friends and that was an extremely depressing and lonely thought to consider.


	13. This Life

**ADMIRAL MOTTI**

Fireworks exploded outside of the ship for days. They had made base on Endor to bury their dead and treat their wounded but Motti had not been allowed out of his room to see just how many field hospitals had been constructed to tend to both the rebels and the Imperials whose medics were overwhelmed with casualties and injured soldiers. He could hear the celebrations throughout the ship and pressed his pillow over his ears to stifle the sounds of people congratulating each other, laughing, and making plans for the future. If he wasn’t listening to such nauseating talk, he was being treated to moans from the wounded and so he slept very little, though this was not a new concept to him.

His nightmares of being strangled by Vader had been replaced by the sensation of being burned alive and despite his objections, he had awoken several times to find himself bound to his cot to keep him from becoming too violent in his sleep. The meddroid removed the restraints as soon as he was conscious, but the sedatives and sleeping assistant medication they were giving him did not help in the least. Or maybe he required a higher dosage since his body seemed to have built up an immunity to these things.

He had lost count of the days, but it didn’t matter when he had nowhere to be and nothing to do. His skin was still too delicate to allow him to wear proper clothes and he was still too weak to test out his new leg. He had not stood up once aboard the medical frigate and his body was starting to protest his lack of mobility. Confined to his room, he waited for the day he would pass his physical inspection and be allowed to see Jerjerrod’s body.

It was being preserved until Motti was able to attend what was sure to be a small and quick funeral. That had been his one request: to be present for the burial or the burning, whichever Motti and Piett collectively decided upon. No condolences had been sent to Jerjerrod’s family back on Tinnel IV simply due to the fact that there was no one to send word to. Like most Imperials, Jerjerrod had severed ties with his family when he enlisted, but it was custom to alert any surviving kin of an officer’s passing. Jerjerrod’s only surviving kin already knew he was dead, had seen it with their own eyes. And so those two who mourned him would wait until both could bid their proper farewells.

In the meantime, Skywalker gave Motti little else to do since he insisted on keeping Motti in the dark about his fate. Rebel forces had rounded up the surviving highest ranking officers and placed them under arrest to be tried for their crimes and the fact was not wasted on Motti who knew that his role in helping the rebellion might not completely save him if his loyalty was called into question. He knew Skywalker would vouch for him (not that Motti needed or wanted him to) if the rebels insisted that he be made to atone for the attack on Alderaan. The Imperial officers would call for his head and Piett’s for their part in the deaths of all those inside the shield generator bunker and the Death Star. The noose was tightening and Motti was powerless to stop it. One way or another, he would have to face a jury when and if he was ever permitted to walk.

Motti had exhibited good behavior that inwardly made him sick to earn the right to not have a meddroid with him at all hours in his room, but it came at the cost of leaving the observational window open around the clock for both droids and human medics to look in on him. Whenever he caught someone or something looking, he stared right back until the observer moved along and it seemed to do the trick to where no one lingered for too long which took away his one source of entertainment and forced him to amuse himself by watching any passerby that happened upon his corridor.

His first real intrigue as to what was going on outside of his own quarters was when one day, he saw Piett walk past the window once, then back in the opposite direction, and then back again all whilst twisting about every which way slow and methodically.

“What in the hell?” Motti sat up as far as his cot allowed and even tried to lift himself an additional inch or two to see better out the window, but it made little difference to his vantage point.

“The admiral is participating in his daily physical therapy regime,” said the meddroid when it saw where Motti was looking. “The ship is quite crowded with the wounded from the recent battle and so the admiral’s reconstructive consultant secured the corridor to help him.”

“Reconstructive consultant? What is there to reconstruct? It was a flesh wound.”

“Initially, yes.”

Irked by the droid’s lack of helpful responses, Motti reached for his untouched tray of food and was about to hurtle it at the window to get Piett’s attention when the admiral himself opened Motti’s door. He paused at the sight of the tray in Motti’s hands about to be chucked away.

“It can’t be that horrid, can it?” he asked, taking a cloth from the meddroid’s station to dab at his face which was sweaty from his new exercise program and then dismissed the droid.

Motti lowered the tray and set it back on his bedside table somewhat sheepishly. “What are you doing out there?”

“Making progress, I should hope.”

“With what? You didn’t have any internal reconstructive surgery.”

“Outwardly, that’s true; it’s nothing but a rather horrid-looking scar but there were several damaged muscles and nerves that make it less than enjoyable to do anything involving bending at the waist.”

“May I see it?”

As the private and timid man Piett was, Motti thoroughly expected him to politely decline, but he didn’t. He made a great show of removing his newly issued rebel admiral’s uniform as he shed the top layers until only an undershirt remained. Bunching up the material, he pulled it to his armpit, grimacing at the movement.

It did not look as Motti had expected: it was much larger. The scar ran from just beside the breast bone to where Piett’s waist met his thigh. It was faded white, almost the color of his skin and looked as if it had been there for well over thirty years, but it stretched in gruesome ways that likened it to a morbid paint splatter. No small wonder movement was a painful task these days.

“How did an energy beam this big,” Motti held up his forefinger and thumb less than inch apart, “make a tear half your body length?”

“Light repeating blaster rounds can rip up to three times the size of the entry wound and that’s if the victim is stabilized in the aftermath. I went for a run, jumped from scaffolding almost two stories high, and co-piloted a shuttle, among other things. It kept tearing and tearing, which was the reason for all the blood. It took almost an entire day in the bacta tank for the exterior repair.”

“But they let you walk about just hours after you came out of that tank.”

“Because I had only been shot.”

“And I’m only going to lose what little muscle I have in my good leg if I don’t get out of this damn bed.” Motti threw his thin sheet back and inched himself close to the edge of the cot. Quite suddenly, it seemed a very long way to the floor.

“You were advised to not attempt this for several more days,” Piett reminded him.

“And since when have I heeded anyone’s advice other than my own?” countered Motti, swinging both legs off of the cot. As the blood rushed down past his ankles, he had a brief moment of hesitation and a private—and stupid—thought that he might have forgotten how to walk. He planted his feet on the floor, let them take his weight, and fell. 

Piett caught him around the middle, having positioned himself to do so in anticipation of the new leg failing Motti. The other admiral gave a subdued exhale of discomfort as he struggled to keep Motti from face-planting.

Motti had not forgotten how to walk, but his legs had. Or at least, his real leg had. The other had not yet had the pleasure of knowing what it meant to walk.

“I have it, let go,” Motti grumbled.

“I’ll let go when I feel safe that you won’t fall over and give yourself an additional injury.”

“You’ll let go now or I’ll kick you with my new leg and it has twice the density of a normal leg which means it’ll take twice as long for you to recover wherever I kick you.”

“Do you want me to drop you?”

In all honesty, no, Motti did not want to end up as a heap on the floor and have the undignified task of trying to climb back up onto his cot, but his pride would not allow him to say so. Piet, however, seemed to guess his motivation all the same.

He felt Piett take a few steps back and then deposit him on the cot. Under normal circumstances, Piett should not be able to accomplish such a thing, being several inches smaller and considerably lighter than Motti, but Motti might go so far as to say that he weighed the same if not less than his friend at the present. 

Pulling aside Motti’s infirmary gown, Piett took in the wasted appearance of Motti’s torso. Motti knew his skeleton was poking out in places where it normally should not be visible and his skin was sagging where there was no more muscle or fat to cling to and pulled the front of his gown back together in a useless attempt to pretend that his malnourishment had not been exposed.

“It’s been two weeks, how have you not retained any additional weight at all?” asked Piett in dismay.

Properly surprised that he had undergone two weeks of absolute boredom and not yet tried to tear out his hair, Motti gestured at the various tubes connected to him. “Because I’m not eating anything but what they’re force-feeding me through this mess. I tried yanking those out too and they put me under for my efforts.”

“Conan, I can see your ribs. You will stop this. I won’t have you denying yourself vital nutrition as a form of self-punishment.” Piett jammed the spoon into the mess of porridge-like substance from Motti’s tray and waved it threateningly at Motti. “You’re going to eat this if it’s the last thing I do.”

“I can’t,” Motti protested. “I tried, believe me. When they told me I was ready to take more than liquid I all but inhaled the meal they gave me and it came right back up. I tried several times since then but my stomach was damaged and it won’t hold anything more. What they feed to me through this tube makes me sick to my stomach and it all comes up anyway. I can’t heal if my body won’t let me.”

Piett took Motti’s face in his hands, but it was the first touch Motti did not find the need to flinch away from. It was invasive and foreign, but there was no one left to judge him for his reaction, so he did nothing except cast his eyes down shamefully.

“Look at me,” commanded Piett. Motti did, and was struck by how old his friend looked, how aged he had become in his service to the Empire. His thin dusty-blond hair was thinner and he had lines of a much older man etched into what had always been a weary-worn face. He was only eight or nine years Motti’s senior, but by any standards, that might as well be a lifetime. And he looked so very, very tired. “I want you to be honest with me.”

For once, for the first time. Completely open with nothing to hide behind. Piett was asking him for something he had never given to anyone, not even Jerjerrod.

“Are you giving this your best effort, or have you given up?”

“I’m trying,” Motti said earnestly. “But nothing works in quite the same way anymore. I have to do what I can, even if everything is working against me. I _am_ trying, Firmus.” He had never cared before what his friends thought as far as his failures or successes. He knew they wished for the best for him, but he had achieved such greatness without their assistance, made his own luck, and made a name for himself all on his own. But this, this frustrating fact that he _did_ want to live and was giving it his best effort and his body was failing him, it was torture. Somehow, after being such a difficult individual for the majority of his life, he did not want to disappoint Piett—again. 

Piett sank down onto the cot next to him. He was not tall enough for his boots to touch the floor and so they hung slightly above it. “It has to be more than just you eating. You have to have the will to want this to work. Your body won’t continue on without your consent and you’re still holding on to that death wish.”

Motti would liked to have called him a liar for that, but in truth, he knew some part of him didn’t want to continue living this life. His subconscious kept delivering suicidal dreams to him in the form of his confrontation with Jerjerrod in the throne room. For five nights now he had had this same dream where Jerjerrod lifted his hand to use his newfound powers to crush Motti’s throat and Motti had begged him to do it with a full understanding of what would happen if Jerjerrod didn’t. He was aware of the suffering he would endure if Jerjerrod did not kill him now and he couldn’t bear it. He didn’t want that chance Jerjerrod was trying to give him.

Trapped in this endless loop of knowing Jerjerrod’s fate and his own and being unable to prevent either from happening, Motti could not take much more of these dreams. It made sense to him that somehow, by laying Jerjerrod to rest, the visions would stop and Motti could return to the nightmares he was used to involving his own mortality and no one else’s. But a small, guilty part of him did not want the dreams to stop, for they were his only link to his friend’s living form. Even if it was at the most precarious moment of his life, those seconds during which Jerjerrod had contemplated killing him or not were the only mental proof Motti had left.

He knew it was an unhealthy coping mechanism and he would not be sharing it with anyone, but he was a selfish man and would deal with the difficulties ahead in his own way.

“You have to make a decision,” Piett told him. “You can’t sit in this room wallowing in your own hatred and blaming Tiaan for doing what he did. You’re worth more than that and so was he and I can’t help you realize that if you won’t let me.”

“You don’t have to. I’m not…I won’t be opting out. I’m not well at the moment and I am struggling, but I’m not helpless, either.”

“You are not, nor have you ever been helpless, but you don’t need to have been for Tiaan and the rest of us to want to look out for you. It was natural for us to take you in. Maximillian and Lorth never had the opportunity to tell you this as Tiaan did and as I will now: you are my responsibility. Not because you’re weaker, which you are not and not because you’re younger, which you are, but because you are family to me, even if you do not reciprocate those feelings.”

“Who said I didn’t—or don’t?” asked Motti quickly, though perhaps too quickly, for he knew a faint pink tinge to his cheeks displayed his embarrassment.

“You have proven to me that you do, but I don’t think you have admitted it to yourself. You took on the same role we did in your actions aboard the Death Star in its final hour, but you can’t accept that role for what it truly is unless you are willing.”

“Even if I am, I don’t—I don’t know…” Motti chewed on his inner lip to stall for time. This was going to be a momentous occasion if he admitted that he couldn’t take on this task alone. “I don’t know that I can do what you’re asking me to do.”

“You can, but only if you _allow_ yourself to. You have to be absolutely committed to it, to bettering yourself and letting yourself heal. There has to be a great deal of acceptance on your part and as difficult as I know that will be for you, I am willing to help you, however I can. It is entirely up to you, but if you want me here, this is where I will be. I need _you_ to tell me, though.”

Such admiration and sadness Motti felt for the man beside him. For someone who had been denied everything that had to do with the concept of family for most of his life and only now when so much of it was broken being able to have one, Piett was leaving the final decision up to him. Piett would put his own desires—his only desire—aside to do what Motti wanted and needed. He would continue living his life as he always had if Motti did not want him to remain. The truly honorable thing to do, and something Motti hoped he never had the goodness to do himself. There was already enough suffering in his life being a horrible person; he didn’t need more of it in being a good person.

“Do you want me here?” asked Piett again. “Do you want my help?”

Motti made to place his hands in his lap but thought better of it and instead grasped his cot. He could hang his head and be shamefaced or he could look his friend in the eye and accept no shame in admitting to being human and needing help for the first time with those exact words. And so he kept his head high and met Piett’s gaze, but the words would not come. Instead, he nodded.

Piett returned the gesture. “It’s a start, then.”

/ /

Today was the day. He was going to stand and then walk to his door (and keep walking, possibly right off the ship if no one caught him). It had been two days since his initial failure and he could not sit for one more second in his cot with only his own stale breath for company. Now, his success or failure would be his own, though he did not intend on failing again.

He set his real foot upon the floor and let the sensation travel up his leg to his hip. A small part of him had feared that the Emperor’s attack had somehow cut off the connection from his legs to his brain in an undetectable injury that would only reveal itself once he started to try and rehabilitate himself, but the message his brain was receiving was a good sign.

Easing himself off of the cot altogether, he leaned sideways and let his natural leg take his weight. It held him, though it wobbled as the muscles relearned how to support him. His bonemer leg promptly refused to hold even a fraction of his weight which was drastically less than it normally would be. Resigned to hopping across the room if he needed to, Motti clutched his bed frame to steady himself and gauge the distance from his cot to the door. No sooner had he mentally steeled himself for the task ahead that there came a pleasant _ding_ to announce he had company waiting without.

The woman who entered without permission had a pointed face, large brown eyes, and intricately braided hair. Though now several years older, she still had that rebellious streak of fortitude and serenity. When last he had seen it, she had been a prisoner, _his_ prisoner in some respect and now their situations were almost reversed, as he wasn’t sure if he was a prisoner by way of technicality.

“Princess Leia,” he greeted, careful to put no suggestion of emotion in his tone. It was important that he make the first move to establish his refusal to be treated as anything less than his rank commanded, though his infirmary gown and diminished posture would suggest otherwise. He certainly felt incredibly vulnerable at this moment: half naked, much thinner, and physically inept and it was now his turn to pretend that he was completely composed.

“Actually, it’s General Organa now,” she corrected. “My position as a royal of a planet that no longer exists was forfeit when you destroyed that planet.”

Motti felt his control slipping before he even had a grasp on it. The princess had set the tone for the conversation, and it was not with him in a position of power.

“That wasn’t on my order,” he reminded her.

“Though you carried it out ‘with pleasure’, I seem to recall. You sneered at me afterward.”

“I might have. I don’t recall the facial expressions I make on a daily basis, though I’ve been told the sneer is permanently etched into my face, so if that was what you saw, I wouldn’t take it personally. But if that’s a war crime to be held against me, I’d rather you just tell me I’m guilty than have to go through the tedious process of a trial. I’m afraid I don’t possess the strength to stand trial or even stand for very long at this point as you can see.”

“Given your assistance to the rebellion, your past crimes are being taken into consideration, but they do not yet condemn you,” said the princess, sounding like the presuming senator he had met years ago. “And since the only two witnesses to your deeds are your fellow Imperial officer and my brother, there will be some debate on the credibility of your actions.”

“Your brother?” asked Motti, not recalling any additional children in the royal family.

“Commander Skywalker is my brother.”

Rather than question the possibility that the princess and the Jedi could share relations, Motti only groaned, “There’s two of you? How marvelous. Did he send you to speak with me?”

“I came by my own doing. I wanted to confront the one survivor who saw my home world shatter into the atmosphere.”

So, this was to be a vindictive and vengeful interrogation. He was in no way surprised.

“Do you want me to apologize for following my superior’s command? I can do that. I can apologize for following orders from both a Grand Moff and a Sith lord. But if you’re asking me to apologize by taking complete responsibility for what happened to your people, then I’m afraid I can’t do that. I won’t beg forgiveness for something I haven’t done.”

“Do you regret the lives lost on that day?”

“Truthfully, I don’t. Death is a natural part of life. Millions die across the galaxy at any given time because there will always be war and dispute for as long as beings with a conscience roam the universe. A few short weeks before your rebel attack on the shield generator on the forest moon, I learned that my father had died and I felt nothing. One of my academy-day companions died in the battle against your people in the Hoth system and I felt nothing. Another companion was throttled by Lord Vader and I felt only relief on his behalf that he did not have to endure this war as the rest of us did. If I had so little regard for those closest to me, why would you imagine that I felt anything for the billions of people I didn’t know on your home planet?”

“And the death of your friend, Commander Jerjerrod?” posed the princess. “Do you regret that?”

“Only because I was the cause of it.”

“As experienced of a liar you may be, you don’t have me fooled, Admiral. Though not as attuned to the Force as my brother, I can still sense the truth in a man. I feel regret and sorrow in you. I feel the pain and abandonment.”

“Then I’ll tell you what I told your brother and would liked to have told your father: sod off,” Motti spat. His leg was trembling now, warning him of the impending give-out that was likely to occur at any second and leave him mortified in the presence of this political upstart.

“You’ve lost someone dear to you and don’t know how to cope with your grief because you’ve never allowed yourself to process the feeling before. I believe you when you say that many deaths have in no way affected you, but it only took one very specific death to bring you to this outcome. I read your medical reports and I have seen your progress since then which is to say—none. You are in mourning which shows that despite your best efforts, you are human after all.”

“I think you should leave now.”

“You’re no lesser of a man for admitting your pain, but you are if you refuse to accept it at all. I forgave you for what your people did to mine because allowing that hate to fester would never allow me to heal. You are the only living soul who I can blame for the deaths of the people who raised me and reared me. You are the only man who I could condemn, but I won’t because I would gain nothing from hurting you and I can sense that you’ve been hurt deeply already. I came in here with a mission to discover if there was any repentance in you and if there was, to tell you that I’ve forgiven you and will see to it that your trial is conducted fairly, if it comes to that, but now I feel for you and the pain you are in.”

“I don’t need you, your brother, or anyone else who fancies themselves a professional emotional consultant telling me what I’m feeling or how I should be coping with myself. Stay out of my affairs, tell your brother to do the same, and leave me the hell _alone_.”

“Do you think Commander Jerjerrod would have approved of this self-destructive behavior you’ve been participating in? If his sacrifice on behalf of a rebellion he had fought against for years is any indication of his character, I believe he would have wanted happiness for you, happiness that you are deliberately denying yourself.”

“Thanks to your rebellion, I’ll never know what he would have wanted. Now, get out. I’ve nothing more to say to you.”

When she had gone, he wiped impatiently at his face and lowered himself down to the floor where he remained until the meddroid found him an hour later.

/ /

Not one more second. He could not bear to be cooped up in his infirmary room for one second more and he made a self-serving executive decision to abandon ship to find some much needed fresh air. The night before he had been taken off of all observational devices and now fashioned himself a cane with the leftover equipment. He had worked especially hard to get to this point by forcing himself to hold down one quarter portion of porridge that morning. He had energy, motivation, and desperation. He needed _out_ , and he was going to get there if he had to fight his way out, not that he cared for his chances if it came to the latter. The best he could hope for if they tried to detain him was to rip off his replacement leg and try to beat someone with it.

No one tried to stop him as he hobbled out into the corridor without using his artificial leg at all. He didn’t trust it just yet. The ship seemed strangely empty as he navigated its many halls to the docking bay and as he stepped out into the first bit of natural air he had breathed in an extremely long time, he could see why. The medical frigate had largely been evacuated in favor of what appeared to be an enormous assembly in a massive clearing in the forest. He saw both rebel and Imperial uniforms in the masses and concluded that this must be some sort of peace gathering. The fact that no one had found it necessary to bring him along told him what significance it was to him, and he set off in the opposite direction.

He felt an enormous sense of accomplishment in making it down off of the boarding ramp and to the nearest tree with a trunk larger than his escape shuttle had been. But it was here that he had to stop, for his leg’s muscles were straining and in need of reprieve. He set his other leg down on the uneven terrain, put a quarter of his weight on it, and felt it give way. Lifting it back off of the ground, he cursed it for being deliberately unhelpful as if it had a personal vendetta against him.

“It’s not the leg that’s the problem, Admiral, it’s you,” said Skywalker, joining Motti at the base of the tree trunk in a timely manner that made Motti suspect that Skywalker had allowed him to get this far as a test of endurance and recovery. “You’re still refusing to accept it as a part of you. The sooner you do that, the sooner it will work for you.”

“If you mean to tell me that I could walk as straight as I ever did with the simple matter of accepting my artificial limb—“

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“Fine, then, I accept the damned thing.”

“I’m not convinced.”

Motti took a large step forward in a fashion he meant to be menacing to show just how convincing he could be, but he had made the mistake of stepping with the bonemer leg and it gave out almost instantly, sending him toppling into Skywalker’s arms. The Jedi caught him and waited for him to follow up on that threatening step, but Motti didn’t. Any resolve Motti had left to wriggle out of Skywalker’s hold was gone and he hung limply and conquered from the Jedi’s arms.

“Let the hate go, Admiral. Every problem you face right now, every wound you feel, is because you’ve let your hate consume you. My father was consumed by hate, and look how it altered him, made him what he was. If you’re so opposed to becoming anything like Vader, you have the power to make that decision. Let go. Accept your friend’s sacrifice, accept your life for what it is now, and let go.”

If Skywalker believed Motti’s lack of response was a sign that he had no more strength to hurtle insults, he was absolutely correct. Motti had no more strength to do much of anything. The Jedi lowered him to the ground, but didn’t let go, keeping a hand on Motti’s shoulder in a horrible display of familiarity that Motti was most uncomfortable with, especially coming from someone he did not consider to be his friend.

_Let go of your hate_.

How was that possible when he hated everything? When he felt so wronged by every world, every star, every particle of life in the universe?

If there was a greater power in all the galaxies that helped mortal men who had no dealings at all with the Force, he welcomed it and so desperately needed it. He needed peace with the life Tiaan Jerjerrod had given him and an answer to the indecision within him. His resolve to endure and live past what had been done to him burned brightly within him, but what was he living for? What did he have? What had Jerjerrod meant when he had said he wanted better for Motti?

Surely not this. This was not better, just different. He was alive with no certainty of his fate and nothing to work toward. His years of training, his years of service—they were irrelevant now. What was he without his rank? Faceless, nameless, useless. And broken, more than he had ever been.

And Skywalker wanted him to _let go_ of the resentment he felt at being shoved into this predicament?

But what good would it do to harvest that hatred? What could come of letting it fester? What purpose would it serve? There was no one he could hurt, no one he cared to hurt. The people responsible for harming him were all dead and hating them after the fact was only burning up fuel he did not have. What, then, could he do with his life that he could not do before?

In short, anything. He was free to go where he willed. No one would chase him, no one would hunt him. His life was his own now after thirty long years of being property of the Empire. Since the day when his father dropped him, a large deposit, and his small sack of belongings on the academy’s doorstep, he could make the decision of what would happen to him next, what he would do next. And it would not be to run, nor would it be to hide.

He would say his final farewells to the man who had wished for _this_ for him. Jerjerrod had wanted Motti to regain control of his life and see that there was so much more to it than the uniform that he thought defined him, the uniform that he had shed when he was taken aboard the rebel ship. The clothes on his back now were the same as Piett’s, those of a rebel admiral, those of a man who had been accepted by the people who had helped keep him alive and repaid him in kind. 

He had people now, not just underlings and superiors. They did not resent him for what he had done in the name of the Empire. They had taken him in and given him all the tools needed to rebuild his life except the most crucial one: closure. That had to be given by himself to himself. He had to find meaning for himself and realize no one could provide that for him.

So he let the hate go, releasing his anger and frustration and enticing hope back in.

Skywalker had left him, but not alone, for Piett stood vigil over him and the sight of his last friend in the universe at his side despite the abuse, the antagonism, and the abhorrence Motti had thrown at him—it was too much for him. The barrier damming his conflicted emotions broke and it all came hurtling out in one giant wave. He placed his hands under his knees and let the sobs wrack his body. The release was painful: his lungs couldn’t take in enough air, he choked on the emotion in his throat, and he felt so very cold despite the muggy afternoon air.

He made no attempt to stop or stem any of it. This would be his healing. He knew he needed this. He had three decades’ worth of emotion to let out and he needed to let it flow naturally or he would implode in on himself.

Piett never moved but to tighten his hold on Motti’s shoulder when he felt that Motti needed reassurance that he was still there. The sun was going down by the time Motti had let his tears run dry but Piett was still there, silent and vigilant. When Motti tried to stand, he couldn’t find his footing in the near darkness and Piett was there to help him.

When Motti stood up, his leg held his weight.

/ /

Only because he could not bear to think of Jerjerrod’s body forever floating in the cold, empty vacuum of space did he suggest burning him. He did not need nor want to see the body condemned to the flames, either. The everlasting image of Jerjerrod dead in the passenger seat beside him was enough for Motti, but when Skywalker pointed out that burning was the ceremonial releasing of Jedi spirits and that it would be in poor form to not be present, Motti relented.

A pyre had been constructed some time ago as if Skywalker suspected all along that this would be the fate Motti and Piett would agree upon for Jerjerrod’s body. That night as the commander was brought to be lain to rest, Motti couldn’t help himself and saw by torchlight that Jerjerrod did not look ten minutes expired. He could have died just seconds ago, not weeks. Whatever methods that had been used to preserve him—for his sake—he was appreciative. He had expected to see much worse with a half-decaying body but seeing Jerjerrod look so close to being alive actually might have backfired on him, for he fooled himself into believing for just a moment that if he prodded the commander, Jerjerrod would sit up.

Dismissing the men who had borne Jerjerrod’s body to the pyre, Skywalker offered a torch to both Motti and Piett. Motti stood on the left, Piett on the right, and waited, for what, they didn’t know.

Jerjerrod had not been removed from his uniform. His Imperial garb even still had blood stains on it from the battle, but all the blood had been wiped away from his face. Beneath the uniform, Motti suspected that his skin also bore burns, though untreated ones. He looked the same and yet completely different in that Motti had never actually seen Jerjerrod look so peaceful. Worry had been ever-present on the commander’s face: worry of the Sith, the rebels, his men, his friends. The lines were permanently etched into his forehead, but they were softer now, at ease, resting. As if he knew that his work was finished and that his sacrifice had been worthwhile.

Motti dropped his torch onto the pyre without ever looking at the flames engulfing the commander’s body. He didn’t look as Piett did the same. His eyes could only see the ground around the pyre as he, Piett, and Skywalker stood by.

“Are you not even going to watch?” Piett whispered.

“Why? That’s not him. He’s not there.”

“No, I suppose he’s not.”

Piett had Jerjerrod’s badge clasped between his hands, the one inanimate object he wished to take off of their friend’s body. He cradled it with such tenderness with the care of handling a newborn babe.

Motti’s fingers were twisted around Jerjerrod’s cap at risk of ripping the material in half and Piett wordlessly reached sideways and grasped Motti’s wrist, asking him to release his tension. After all the cap had survived, it would be a poor joke played on Motti by the universe if he was able to tear it with his bare hands. Initially, he had believed that Jerjerrod lost this critical piece of his uniform in the Joint Chiefs chamber, but the commander had removed it before he stood up to admit his betrayal. He had placed it in his pocket for safekeeping, but detaching himself from part of his uniform was a subtle gesture at his displacement from the fleet he no longer served. It had remained in Jerjerrod’s pocket throughout the entire ordeal and discovered when the commander’s body was put into the preservation chamber. Only just before the burning was it and the badge presented to Motti and Piett as memoirs.

Rubbing the slightly course material between his fingers, Motti listening to wood snapping as the fire burned through the support. By now, there would be little to nothing left of Jerjerrod’s body and he couldn’t bring himself to watch even those final fragments scatter to the wind. When he knew for certain that the body was gone and that only wood and fire remained, he looked up to a sky of fireworks that the rebels somehow never seemed to run dry of.

A universe-wide celebration for the end of tyranny apparently did not have an expiration date.

Struck by a sudden inspiration, he posed a theory to Skywalker. “During one of those many visits to my room in the infirmary, you said you had received advice from the Jedi who taught you after they had passed.”

Skywalker nodded carefully as if he knew what Motti was going to ask.

“You said…they came to you when…when they—“

He cut himself off. He was growing most tired of seeing the pity Skywalker seemed to reserve just for him. 

The Jedi shook his head sadly. “They were great Jedi masters with many, many years of practice to become one with the Force. If I were to drop dead this second, I wouldn’t even be able to achieve that level of mastery. I’m afraid Commander Jerjerrod didn’t either. And even if he did, you most likely would not be able to see or hear him.”

“Why, because I don’t possess the Force or because he wouldn’t want to come?”

“The Force exists in every living being, in everything around us. It _is_ everything. But it does not coexist within everyone. Those who are aware of its presence are those who can use it and for the time being, you are not one of those individuals with such a gift. By that same token, I don’t think the commander would have come to let you see him again. I think he would know it would be cruel to have you linger on that hope and dwell on when next you might see him. He is gone, as are my masters, and the ghosts that visit me are just whispers of their souls guiding me down my path, for I still have a journey to take with the Force. You don’t require any guidance, Admiral.”

“It’s not for my sake that I would want to speak with him,” said Motti. “I would want him to know…I would have words with him that I believe he would have wanted to hear.”

“I think he already knows, Conan,” said Piett, having been listening intently to the conversation. “If he’s here, if his soul is with us, he’ll hear, but if you can’t bring yourself to say aloud what you need to say, I’m certain that he knows. He knew in the cockpit as he was trying to tell you goodbye. He knew it would be hardest on you, but that you would heal and be grateful for the friendship he was able to give you. He was a good man, and a good friend.”

“Yes, he was.”

_“I had hoped for better…for you_. _”_

Motti watched the pyre turn to embers and Skywalker left him and Piett to observe the glow as the Jedi returned to camp some half mile behind them. The smoke curled every which way, taking on shapes Motti didn’t recognize. His eyes began to glaze over as his mind recalled the voices of Maximillian Veers, Lorth Needa, and Tiaan Jerjerrod…and Firmus Piett as the other admiral nudged him in the ribs and pointed with a subdued exclamation of, “Look there…”

He tried to focus on where Piett was pointing but only saw more smoke until—there was most definitely a shape there. He could almost believe that he was seeing a human figure with a stern, observing expression. There were just echoes of what the silhouette truly was, what it was attempting to be, but it was not mere smoke. He could almost believe that he had seen a man in an Imperial uniform with his hands placed attentively behind his back, standing to order and watching…

But if he had seen what he wanted to believe he saw, then it was a sign to him that this was the last he would ever see of that man.

Motti placed his friend’s cap in his pocket as Piett did the same with the badge. They turned their backs to the remains of the pyre and allowed the brilliant display of celebratory fireworks to light the way, guiding them forward and onward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As with all of my stories, I struggled to finish this 1.) because I wasn't ready for it to end and 2.) because "I'm not superstitious, but I'm a little stitious" about ending at 13 chapters. I knew this wouldn't be as long of a story as others that I've written, but I'm glad I took the chance that someone might genuinely be interested in it by posting it. It got me through quarantine and if (knock on wood), quarantine returns, maybe I'll find another story to occupy my time
> 
> I've done so much research into the Star Wars universe to try and get the most obscure details correct and to do justice to the characters and I've combed through the internet for more audio interviews and videos related to my three main characters than I care to admit. I've also done some multitasking in doing some quick drawings of them (shameless plug), so if you'd like to check those out, you can see my IG (@paintedviolin).
> 
> Thank you to the two readers who have left reviews as of the publication of the last chapter and to those of you who love these characters. Until next time, peace.


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